A director’s reckoning with masculinity and memory.
For South African-born Greg Karvellas, bringing MOFFIE to the South African stage is not just a creative undertaking — it’s personal. Now based in Berlin, Karvellas returns to Cape Town with the one-man stage adaptation of André Carl van der Merwe’s semi-autobiographical novel, following its critically acclaimed London premiere, where it received rave reviews — including a 5-star write-up in The Guardian and four Off West End Award nominations.
Running at The Baxter Flipside from 2–27 September 2025, MOFFIE tells the harrowing story of Nicholas van der Swart, a 17-year-old conscripted into the South African Defence Force at the height of the Border War. Isolated, afraid, and forced to hide his sexuality in an aggressively masculine environment, Nicholas becomes a symbol for a generation of young men brutalised not only by the system around them but by the expectations of masculinity imposed upon them.
Starring well-known South African actor David Viviers, the production is a stripped-down, emotionally raw theatrical experience. Viviers, a Fleur du Cap winner with acclaimed work across stage and screen, carries the entire piece — embodying not only Nicholas but the emotional weight of the world around him.
Karvellas didn’t serve in the army himself, but the trauma of that era is something he understands intimately. “I grew up in the 1980s surrounded by men — uncles, cousins, family friends — who had been through the system,” he reflects. “I remember the silence. The way they drank. The way they carried something they couldn’t talk about.”
The Border War, Karvellas says, often feels skimmed over in South African history. “Especially in the 1980s, its intensity isn’t front and centre in the national narrative — and yet, the pain those men carry still lives on in those who survived it. The process of that trauma is still felt today.”
That silence — the generational weight of it — is what MOFFIE seeks to break. Karvellas sees the story not just as a lens on the past, but as a confrontation with the toxic masculinity that continues to shape South African identity today. “There was this inherited mantra — ‘suffer, baby, suffer’ — as if emotional repression was proof of manhood,” he says. “It’s not just about the army. It’s about what it taught boys to become.”
Looking at the world today — the rise in hate, the deepening of divisions, and how dangerous it can still be to live outside the dominant narrative — Karvellas believes MOFFIE, both the book and this stage adaptation, feels urgent. “This piece shines a light on that,” he says. “It speaks to what happens when difference is punished instead of embraced.”
Having recently directed the South African premiere of Dear Evan Hansen — another story about loneliness and not fitting in — Karvellas is no stranger to emotionally charged narratives. But MOFFIE, he says, cuts deeper. “Both shows are about young men who feel completely unseen, who are fighting to be allowed to exist as they are. But MOFFIE is raw. It’s personal. It’s still in our bones.”
The decision to stage MOFFIE as a one-man play was intentional. “Nicholas is isolated — mentally, emotionally, physically. The solo format makes that inescapable for the audience,” Karvellas explains. He collaborated with playwright Philip Rademeyer to adapt the novel into a poetic, pared-back script, with striking design and lighting by Niall Griffin and immersive sound design by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder — who himself went through conscription and later created the film Kanarie, based on his experience.
“Through Charl’s design,” Karvellas says, “the audience will not only hear and see Nicholas’s story — they will hear the border. They will hear the brutality.”
The production is presented by The Common Humanity Arts Trust, in association with The Baxter Theatre. Karvellas is currently working on multiple projects with the Trust — most recently curating a moving tribute to Athol Fugard at the Royal Court Theatre in London. He was also a central figure at The Fugard Theatre in Cape Town, serving as Artistic Director until its closure in 2021.
Now working across South Africa, the UK, and Europe, Karvellas continues to explore stories that confront the past while challenging the present. Audiences, he notes, have included veterans, young students, queer community members, and the children of men who served — each bringing their own lens to the work. “Countless men still carry the trauma of that time,” he says. “And for those of us who didn’t live it directly but inherited its silence, MOFFIE is a way of acknowledging that history — and its cost.”
This feels especially relevant because, despite it being almost the end of 2025, hate, division, and brutality remain very much a part of our shared human reality. The systems may look different today, but the underlying fear of “otherness” — and the violence it so often fuels — still echoes loudly around the world. That’s why stories like MOFFIE still matter. They remind us that history isn’t as far behind us as we’d like to think.
There are still men walking among us with deep, unspoken scars — fathers, brothers, spouses, lovers — carrying pain that has never fully healed. And that pain ripples outward, touching those around them in ways both seen and unseen. MOFFIE is a reminder that personal trauma is never isolated. It echoes. It shapes families. It shapes society. And until we look at it — really look at it — we can’t begin to heal.
What’s also striking is how far away apartheid and the Border War feel for many younger audience members. In post-show conversations, several have admitted they didn’t even know the Border War had happened. That gap in awareness is, in itself, a reason to tell this story. We cannot meaningfully engage with where we are — or where we’re going — if we don’t understand where we’ve come from.
MOFFIE runs from 2–27 September 2025 at The Baxter Flipside. Tickets available via Webtickets. PG16. 85 minutes. No interval.
