Yawazzi Fish Tank

Over the course of the last weekend in Cape Town, we took time to remember Yvonne Banning. The two memorial services, one at The Little Theatre and one at the Methodist Church Hall in Observatory, became a sharing of collective memories of this wonderful woman who had managed to leave her mark on so many people. Such a mark, that all of us who knew her, will keep with us for the rest of our lives.

I first worked with Yvonne when I became an accidental actor in Geoffrey Hyland’s Hamlet of 2004 at UCT. She was helping out with voice, and very soon she had to deal with Bosnian-Canadian who was trying to appear completely natural speaking Shakespeare (while playing Polonius) on the Cape Town stage. She must have liked me from the start, because
I was going to write about how i first got to know her, and how supportive she always was, and how she always encouraged me… i would take you through the details of our encounters, but it doesn’t feel quite right.

You see, over these last two days i had a chance to hear so many incredible testaments to the woman and the effect she had on people…all of them who were her students. there is nothing more that i can say about her that will change this. She was a teacher, the model of a teacher, one who got through to you, one who made you think and feel that you could do whatever it was that you had thought of. She was also one who could unite people over an idea, or a project, bring out their creative best and then revel in the fruits of their labour.

But i will always remember her for one simple word…”Smile.” It is what she said to me a lot during my first few years at UCT, when I was so concerned about doing things right and by the book. She was persistent in trying to get this melancholy Bosnian to smile. She was one of the few people who did manage to do just that, and with that simple word.

I will miss you Yvonne, but I am a better teacher, theatre person, and human being in general for having known you.

Hvala.