The irrepressible Beauty Ramapelepele played by Ben Voss)Beauty Ramapelepele (aka Ben Voss) to make a single appearance at Barnyard Theatre.
The Barnyard Theatre at Gateway will be welcoming local theatre and radio star Ben Voss, and his South African business woman of the year alter-ego Beauty Ramapelepele, to the popular mall venue for one show only on October 2.
Beauty and the BEE sees well known South African director Janice Honeyman teaming up with comic star Ben Voss (Green Mamba and Black Mamba) to bring you Beauty Ramapelepele, a 49 year-old nouveau-riche Houghton mother of two who is fast developing a national profile on both East Coast Radio and Jacaranda FM.
Beauty has tata-ma-chance struggle credentials. Her drug-running father was killed in the crossfire of the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 while delivering dagga to a group of teenagers, her sister is married to the Head of the Reserve Bank and she counts Zuma’s wives as personal friends. However, this gives her the inside line on all gossip in the power corridors of South African business and politics! And to cap it all, she is the trophy wife of self-made construction mogul Tobias Ramapelepele, a man who boasts two of the Gautrain stations as well as the new Moses Mabhida soccer stadium amongst his current contracts. Beauty Ramapalapele is the perfect South African weapon - black, bright, beautiful, bitchy woman at the top of her business and social game.
However, her life has not always been a New South African fairytale. The daughter of a maid and a labourer, Beauty was conceived next to a primrose bush (which has long since made way for off-street parking) in the extensive Houghton garden of the Whitakers (her mother’s then employers). She was born on the 8th of May 1958 at the Baragwanath hospital. That was the 10th anniversary of the hospital and, as a result, no staff were on hand to attend to her. So Beauty Ramapelepele first saw daylight in the boot of a clapped-out 1957 Ambassador Station Wagon taxi in the parking lot of the world’s biggest hospital! Her blue collar mother, Mitze, and father, Nkenkelezi, were 19 years old.
With a nose for gossip and inside information on everything from stripes to checks, and the BEE to the president’s office, Beauty Ramapelepele gives us a “fly on the wall” view of South Africa’s new black elite. Hers is a rags to riches story of our relatively tender democracy built on her simple and effective business philosophy - “Invest in Africa…buy a politician!”
Tickets R115 pp and with one show only, booking is essential through The Barnyard Theatre on 031 566 3045, or e-mail gateway@barnyardtheatres.co.za or visit www.barnyardtheatres.co.za for more information.
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