Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - October 28, 2005
Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom is part of a growing cadre of young black South African artists smashing through African taboos to portray in theater and film the ultraviolence and explicit sex they say reflects real life in the country's roughest townships.
"After apartheid died some people were scared, they were shying away from showing black people in a bad way," said Grootboom. "I try to fight against that. An artist should tell about what he sees."
The 30-year-old writer is luring a new generation of black theatergoers to his plays, which mix English with township slang peppered with expletives, and tackle the rainbow nation's dark underbelly, including the twin scourges of AIDS and crime.
His latest play, "Relativity: Township Stories," a tale of moral decay set in a generic black township, notches up 10 on-stage murders, each one marked with an item of clothing hung on a washing line.
Met with howls of delight by the mostly black audience, his last play "Cards," set in a Johannesburg brothel, was one of the first African plays to feature male nudity -- no mean feat for a black director, says Grootboom.
"It is very difficult to get a black actor to take off his clothes -- it's a taboo, they worry what their parents think."
EMPTYING OUT FRUSTRATIONS!
"Cards" and "Relativity" follow last year's controversial play "Tsepang," based on a true story about the rape of a 9-month-old girl.
Commentators also note similarities with "Tsotsi," a South African film tipped for an Oscar nod about a gangster from Soweto, South Africa's most famous township.
Having grown up in Soweto, Grootboom says he should know about violence. His cousin is in jail for rape and murder and he modeled the villains of his two recent plays on his own darkest desires.
"I identified with the serial killer in 'Relativity' -- for a long time I used to feel like that. I am emptying out some of my frustrations," he said.
In "Cards," he felt closest to the character of a brothel owner who tries to buy off a corrupt judge with the body of a 14-year-old girl and summarily murders one of his prostitutes for refusing to have sex without a condom.
"I enjoyed saying some of the bad things I feel," he said.
But Grootboom says he has had enough of real-life violence and wants to keep the murder and intrigue for his plays.
"I have been exposed to a whole lot of violence, maybe I am trying to deal with that. I don't go back to Soweto, it is too violent, 12-year-old boys will kill you for your cellphone."
He is toying with three storylines for his next play, one of which focuses on extreme racial violence in Johannesburg's city center.
"I have some doubts because I want to stay away from violence for a bit," he mused. "Maybe I will write a nice quiet love story instead."
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