IT ISN’T that Louis Viljoen was inspired by Emily Child to write the character Pervert Laura, but that he wanted to write something substantial for her to really grab hold of.
The two of them acted in Urban Death late in 2013 and he got the distinct impression that she was capable of more. So, he decided to really push his friend over the edge. And, now they both have Fleur du Cap awards to show for it.
“I don’t think it will exist only for her, I hope that after our run is done anyone can play it, but that’s how it started,” said Viljoen. “We wanted her to experience things and do a role that she’d never done before and I think it worked.”
In the play Child plays a woman whose descent into depravity is tracked by a series of encounters with a variety of people – with each conversation revealing more of her troubled past and her current mindset.
Viljoen won a Best New Script Fleur du Cap for Champ in 2013, and again for The Kingmakers as well as picking up the Rosalie van der Gucht Prize for New Directors this year.
It had been a while since Capetonians had seen his name on a programme – he last directed The Verbalists in 2012 and, of course, wrote Champ which was performed in 2013, but then he concentrated for a long time on getting The Kingmakers and The Pervert Laura off the ground.
The Pervert Laura hasn’t changed for its new run at The Fugard: “Because of the Studio, yes, we’ve had to adapt. It will still essentially be the same, but the curtain changes.” (In the Little Theatre the curtain moved up and down, but it moves side to side in the upstairs Studio).
“A lot of people were saying: ‘Oh, it has to look the same’, but you can’t. It has to suit the space and, at the end of the day, it’s the story that counts. Everything around it helps, but it shouldn’t just be about that.
“I still have Guy (de Lancey) on, who acts as well, but designed it, and he’s brilliant. There’s no way that he’ll let something slip.”
Viljoen is trying to get another run organised for The King-makers, but being so wholly independent makes it difficult to get theatres to pick up the works intact: “If you go to other places they want to change things, or the cast, or not pay you .”
Still, he has spent the past two years working hard at this, trying to make money only from theatre because anything else would just get in the way: “Otherwise, it will always be a hobby. I believe if you’re a theatremaker that should be the main thing you do, and my aim is not to be wealthy, but if I can live okay, I’ll be fine. If I look at the first play I did in Cape Town about seven years ago, The Wild Boys, where we each made about a R1 500 and then we did Laura independently last year, and that was a cast of five and a stage manager and we made a hell of a lot more. So, it can work. It will never be amazing, but you can make money off it. And, if it goes to another place it gets easier.”