Uys's current show, "Elections and Erections: A Chronicle of Fear and Fun," contains some brilliantly funny moments, some sharp observations of both South African and US politics, and, of course, appearances by some of the performer's most familiar alter egos - notably the outrageously oblivious Evita Bezuidenhout, "the most famous white woman in South Africa," and an equally exaggerated drag version of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But now that the universally condemned evil of apartheid has given way to the messier and more complex flaws and virtues of an evolving democracy, it's clearly harder for Uys to find a single stunning focus for his barbs.
Sometimes that doesn't much matter. Evita is still a hoot, in her out-Daming Dame Edna sort of way; Uys's portrayal of Mother Teresa, answering phones in heaven, is silly and amusing, and his Hillary Clinton isn't half bad, either. But, as that list might indicate, the show itself doesn't naturally cohere into an organic whole.
Partly that's because much of Uys's best stuff is distinctly South African, and here he's apparently trying to tailor it for an American audience. The effort is understandable, but it doesn't always work. Some of the South African political references are unfamiliar here, and the need to explain them slows down the pace of the storytelling. On the other end of the spectrum, Uys's jokes about US politics sometimes have the slightly stale, almost-on-target quality you'd expect from material that's had to travel back and forth across the Atlantic a couple of times.
Uys's skills as a performer and mimic are remarkable. His sense of timing, his ability to transform himself with the wave of a hand and a fake eyelash or two, and his virtuosic range of accents and tones are always fascinating to watch. His political points, too, are hard to argue with; he's particularly passionate on the subject of AIDS and the appalling response of Thabo Mbeki's government to this crisis, and his ability to pinpoint absurdity makes his critique here especially strong.
