SALT started as a final-year university project for writer/director Wynne Bredenkamp, sparked by the idea of growing up and how that meant leaving your imagination behind.
“As you grow up, your imagination becomes smaller and if you act in a playful way you’re told to grow up. So, you’re pushed out of that imaginative phase. It’s not compatible with normal life and I remember being sad about that,” she said.
Combined with the exploration of “ignorance is bliss”, especially within the context of extraneous information which could erode an entire people’s sense of self, this got her thinking about “being civilised and colonised”.
Joburg-born, but living in Cape Town for the past five years, Bredenkamp is acutely aware of what it means to try and navigate her history as a white South African: “You understand you are part of a history of people who took an entire group of people and made their religious beliefs and entire world meaningless because they brought in something they believed was the right way.”
All of which could either make her run and hide, or use her theatre-making skills to explore just how people cope.
“It’s about perception and how what you see and I see could be completely different things and they could both be true,” said Bredenkamp about Salt, which has grown from a student project into a fully fledged, award-winning play.
The storyline “basically looks at a schizophrenic patient and how a doctor tries to wrangle her into normality by accepting what he thinks are the true events of her life, because she’s been drugged up to this point. As they go through the therapeutic process of trying to uncover what causes schizophrenia, the version she gives is unbelievable, but she believes wholeheartedly in this truth of hers. So, we go and investigate that truth, through the actor and the storyline.”
Bredenkamp, pictured below, was surprised by the amount of attention Salt got by talking about schizophrenia, even though it wasn’t their main theme. It brought home how many households struggle with the idea of whether to administer very strong drugs meant to control or mitigate schizophrenia, which takes away from some people a world they are very happy to live in: “A lot of people are quiet about it but we had one lady who said: ‘Mental illness is so often portrayed as crazy people and they’re weird and hurting themselves and there’s something wrong with them. Negative’. Whereas our actor Emma says ‘it’s her truth, it’s her world’ so she approaches it from that idea. Not that she has to portray her character as crazy or stereotypical, just the truth that she sees a different world to us. So, we had a lot of people relieved by her portrayal.”
The title refers to her fascination with the sea (as a landlocked born Joburger) which is a constant idea mentioned in the play. Also, if you put salt in a wound, it stings.
“So, what the doctor says at the end… because we find he is almost violent in the way he treats her emotionally… he says: ‘It’s like putting salt on a wound. It’s abrasive and it stings but you’re healed afterwards. It’s unpleasant and it cleans you out’.
“But, whether it helps or makes it worse is what the audience is left with.”
By the time the performance got to the 2014 National Arts Festival it was more polished and professional and they were nominated for a Silver Ovation on the first day. Bredenkamp went on to win one of three Pansa New Writer’s Awards for the script and they were offered a spot on the inaugural Cape Town Fringe Festival line-up last year. Now they come to the Theatre Arts Admin Collective in Observatory as well as Kalk Bay Theatre.
Original cast members David Viviers and Emma Kotze reprise their roles, but Daniel Richards has to be replaced (“because his career is skyrocketing”) which is turning out to be harder than anticipated.
Already Bredenkamp has two potential cast members lined up, but availability may just mess with the TAAC run, though the Kalk Bay Theatre is only planned for April, so that is already inked into the diary.
Already she is turning her thoughts to the next National Arts Festival, where Salt will be presented at the Cape Town Edge platform and she is working with Kotze and Viviers on a new work, Couched.
That will take its cue from interviews they are conducting about what it means to be a Born Free trying to express your identity are in a supposedly non-racial society.
• Salt, Theatre Arts Admin Collective, March 10-15, 8pm & April 21-May 3 at Kalk Bay Theatre.
Mental illness under the spotlight
In addition to Salt, Theatre Arts Admin Collective will also host The Playroom, written and directed by Thandolwethu Mzembe.
The winner of the Market Theatre’s Zwakala Festival 2013, The Playroom also touches on mental health issues and runs just before Salt, from March 3 to 7 at 7pm in Observatory.
Performed in English and Xhosa by Aphiwe Livi, Babalwa Makwetu, Xola Mntanywa, Luleka Ngcenge and Thandolwethu Mzembe, The Playroom also succesfully ran at the Zabalaza Festival in 2013.
It follows three mentally disturbed people who are placed in an institution in their playroom. As they go through various experiences they gradually reveal the truth about themselves and their psychological dislocation.
The play veers from comedic fun to raising chilling questions of issues of leadership and positions of power within the health system.
Tickets are R50 from [email protected], www.theatrearts.co.za or 021 447 3683. The Theatre Arts Admin Collective, Methodist Church Hall, cnr Milton Road and Wesley Street, Observatory.
• Currently on at the Baxter, the excellent psychological thriller Blue/Orange brings psychiatric theory and practice under scrutiny. The play features a no persons under 12 age restriction. Directed by Clare Stopford, the three-hander stars Andrew Buckland, Nicholas Pauling and newcomer Marty Kintu, with design by Patrick Curtis. It runs until March 14 at 8.15pm with Monday and Tuesday performances at 7pm. Tickets range from R100 to R150 from Computicket.