THE CAPE – A WEEKLY MAGAZINE
The following appeared in The Cape on 17/04/1924 and seems relevant today.
Regular contributions to Friday Pictures in 1920s. Subjects included:
14/04/1927 The Idealist
13/01/1928 On a Hill Top
11/05/1928 The Gleaning
12/10/1928 Dumb Fever
In the Christmas Number 21/12/1928 The Drought
1928 had started with a terrible drought and this influenced Dorothea’s article. She is describing a road trip through the Karoo.
“We stopped for tea by a river and built our fire in the middle of the river bed that had forgotten the sound of running water. Rivers and drifts we crossed in plenty, rivers of dust and drifts of sand. Not even a solitary pool of stag- nant water moistened the surface in miles and weary miles. Only the road ran on, untiring, unrelieved.
It was a new-made road that journeyed thus steadily to guide us on our way. We had asked concerning it from a fellow traveller, having heard that the roads were bad about here. “Oh no” he said “You will find the roads very good in the drought districts because the destitute farmers there have taken relief work on the roads.”
What were they made of, these roads? I know. They were made of broken dreams and crushed hopes, of disillusion- ment and disappointment and heart-break. Under our wheels, pounded into the veld, lay buried the lost faith of many a soul.
I who was riding home to Christmas knew that for many a one in that great desert the season would hold faint cheer. A merry Christmas – with the labours of a lifetime crushed in the dust! A merry Christmas with broken dreams and shattered hopes and only a road leading out into a world that has no place for failures. A merry Christmas!
But love has a wonderful way of mending broken dreams. And love knows the secret of building new hopes and reviving faith that has died. And love can put it into the hearts of men to make Christmas for these, our brothers, who suffer.
A merry Christmas to us all!”
WEEKEND ARGUS
This was the weekend editon of The Cape Argus which was started in 1857 by Saul Solomon. Non-racial from its inception it opposed the Apartheid regime. Dorothea would not have written for this paper as it is today.
JULY AND AUGUST 1924
The Weekend Argus wrote the following to introduce Dorothea’s articles.
A short series of articles specially written for the Weekend Argus by Mrs Graham Botha, wife of the Chief Archivist. Mrs Botha, who writes fascinatingly of the Japanese and their customs, will deal in subsequent articles with wonderful Nikko, Japanese Universities and students, marriage customs, the cities and the shops. From the article from this series – A South African in Lotus Land – Dorothea describes a visit to The Mitsukoshi, Tokyo’s largest store.
THE CAPE TIMES
An English language daily newspaper launched in 1872 which became the principal newspaper in the Cape. Today the paper is politically biased and Dorothea would not have written for it.
03/02/1928 What’s Two Rands? Not Even Dinner!
This was an article referring to her travels in Alaska and Europe. She concludes:
Back in Constantia.....nowhere have I seen a lovelier place to live in than this one particular spot in the particular green valley. Where the peace is so deep that you almost drown in it.
On the leader page Dorothea’s poems appeared regularly.
05/12/1925 The Song of a South African
THE OUTSPAN
A weekly publication from 1927 to 1957. Described as the most widely read magazine published in Southern Africa. It contains a wealth of first- class fiction and special articles, mostly by South African writers, generously illustrated.
11/05/1928 God Forgotten – a story about a drought strickened farmer’s despair
13/01/1933 Do you fit your job?
02/07/1937 Do we expect too much of other people?
05/08/1938 Is yours a Happy house?
25/11/1938 Winner of A Christmas Carol competition
11/08/1939 What colour is your character?
22/10/1948 You have to learn to love them
IN A SMALL NOTEBOOK
I have been turning the leaves of Memory’s Album. What a cameo is this from Nikko! Lacquer temples and curving gilded roofs framed by dark cryptomeria trees; wonderful colouring and carving on wall and gateway, and graceful torii. A little summersaulty stream scolding past a line of stone Buddhas and under the sacred bridge of red lacquer and mist on the hills. A view from a wayside tea house of maple covered mountain sides of autumn, up and down and all around the profuse colours blending and burning, from yellow to orange and brown and red with here and there a restraining touch of dark evergreen, the whole threaded with blue and white ribbons of fall-filled streams. And a veil of soft mist flung across the brilliancy to add a note of tenderness.
STAGE AND RADIO PLAYS
Dorothea wrote plays some of which are listed below. Her husband Frank acted and directed many plays from his first arrival in Cape Town and some of the plays written by Dorothea will have involved both of them.
NOAH’S FLOOD (CHESTER PLAYS)
THE LAST DANCE BEFORE MIDNIGHT
The play is set in the days of Lady Anne Barnard in the Cape. Last entertainment at 20.55 on Christmas Day on the radio. Year not known – after 1932 as she was Dorothea Spears.
THE DOOR IN THE WALL
Radio play, 20 mins, cast of 8
She described it as ‘a historical fantasy written for radio produc- tion by Dorothea Spears’.
Sadly the script is not dated but the address is Oaklands where she lived from 1933 to 1950.
This play tells the story of a house haunted by the ghost of a young Huguenot girl who was running away to marry a British officer, assisted by Lady Anne Barnard. Her father shoots her dead as she meets her lover at the door in the wall which was then bricked up 140 years ago – making the play’s date about 1940.
MODERN MARPESSA
A play for wireless production
Accompanied by a letter from Dorothea dated 13.08.1936 to Mr McClurg of the South African Broadcasting Corporation. She recommends the play for those “who appreciate a better type of programme.” She goes on “The parts of Anthony and Marcia would be taken by Frank Spears and myself, of course.” In a second version of the same letter she changes this to “Would you like to give us an audition for the scene between Anthony and Marcia, without prejudice?”
One copy of the play is marked ‘by DS Produced Jan 26 1937 Capetown Studio’
The play is a modern version of the myth of Marpessa and Idas. Marpessa was offered marriage by both the mortal Idas and the God Apollo. She chose Idas declaring she preferred to link her fate to that of a mortal who would grow old when she did and love her as long as they both lived. In the play Marcia choses the safe hands of Mathew rather than the adventurer Anthony, explaining to him that she would be afraid to watch his love for her grow cold.
IN COUNTRY MOOD
Headed – Script Richard Buncher
Cape Town ‘A’ Programme Tuesday 22nd November 1949 9.30-10pm
MAKE MEN HONEST – A RADIO PLAY COWARDS – A LITTLE PLAY IN ONE ACT WE’RE GLAD WE CAME
AUTHOR IN SEARCH OF A PLAY
YOU NEVER KNOW
HER NAME IS MARY
– 26.07.1941 A Programme 9.15 – 9.45
A programme devised by Dorothea Spears and presented by Walter Swanson with Willa Haynes, Frank Spears and Walter Swanson at the piano
MAY DAY
– a sentimental interlude
THE MAN WHO WAS GOD
A play in three acts written by Dorothea and Frank
THE COWARDS
Produced by The Mummers