Bambi still has teeth, and she's cracking nuts

Bambi Kellermann, Evita Bezuidenhout's younger sister, exists in a much darker, edgier world than her globetrotting, politically influential sibling.

She's our very own Lotte Lenya, the famous hooker-turned-songstress who met, collaborated with and married composer Kurt Weill in 1921. The Marxist poet Bertolt Brecht completed this holy trinity of German cabaret.

Bambi is our world-weary survivor of the currents of history. She's a returned exile, a widow whose former husband, Joachim von Kellermann, was a Nazi sympathiser. She, too, is a former stripper, showgirl and hooker who now runs a brothel in Paarl, and she's HIV-positive.

Over the years, Bambi has circled the limelight, popping up here and there, demonstrating how to use condoms and have safe sex. But her creator, Pieter-Dirk Uys, has finally found a space and theatrical vehicle that allows her to blossom fully.

The beautiful, downtown Fugard Theatre, with its shades of brown, ochre and grey, is the perfect backdrop for FAK Songs and Other Struggle Anthems, a cabaret in the true sense of the word and a production that restores this much-abused genre back to its dark, decadent, disturbing, sarcastic and satirical essence.

Bambi's Bokkie Band, with musical arrangements (with many a South African flourish) by the hugely talented Godfrey Johnson, also on piano, Hilton Schilder on percussion, Rayelle Goodman on violin, Mac McKenzie on guitar and Heather Roth on flute and sax, take us through an eclectic range of music from the traditional repertoire of Afrikaans volksliedjies (given a vigorous and contemporary satirical working over) to the stirring and atonal, jagged anthems of Weill, Brecht and Stephen Sondheim.

Uys occupies the stage for close to two hours, a consummate showman. He understands completely the language of the theatre, threading a bit of Bambi's personal history with political and social commentary and much mad wit and pathos.

There are chill winds blowing about our young democracy. All of these are vital for cabaret to retain its bite. So while Bambi Kellermann still has teeth, as the African saying goes, she's cracking nuts.