What first strikes you about Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom - winner of the 2005 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Drama - is his unassuming nature.
There is little in his painfully shy demeanour that suggests a playwright who loves exploring the darker themes - the underbelly, so to speak - of society.
In CARDS, we meet shadowy characters that frequent a Hillbrow brothel. In Relativity, his new play that will be staged at the National Arts Festival in July, the main character is a youthful serial killer from the townships. So, why the fascination with subjects that are considered too gritty, some might even say taboo, for theatre?
"I want to push writing in this country to a level where you're able to write about anything without people reacting negatively. That said, I'm not trying to champion any cause," he explains.
"When I write I just want to have fun. Sure, there were those moral themes in CARDS but for me it was more about falling in love with the concept (CARDS was originally written by Mothusi Mokoto). I loved being able to create the most despicable characters that can say anything," he notes.
Still, the fact that Grootboom is able to tackle these subjects, his fictional writing skills aside, does not fully explain how he is able to write these characters on the fringe of society with such authenticity.
Further probing reveals a surprisingly candid Grootboom.
It becomes evident that he has used his own life experiences to draw on.
He talks of an unhappy childhood in which he was abandoned as a baby. An elderly couple from his extended family adopted him but, as Grootboom explains, never failed to remind him of his bastard status throughout his childhood. He bitterly notes how he was forbidden to play with other children after school:
"The result was that my social skills suffered. As a boy, I used to hate people, even as a young man I was very angry. When I wrote Relativity, that character was very personal to me. I could release a whole lot of things," he says.
Ironically, it was probably this social isolation that led to him to discover his greatest source of inspiration: cinema.
Playing truant during his first year at Wits University, he would instead spend his days going to watch art house movies. It was this cinematic experience that led him to write his first script and after submitting it, his meeting with the late television producer John Rogers. Rogers became his mentor.
"John was a stimulating influence because instead of literal teaching, he would provoke ideas that would make me think for myself," says Grootboom.
For CARDS, Grootboom too relates his life experience for giving him the insight to write these "despicable" characters. He joined an acting class, and it was a teacher that he befriended who would take him into the dens of iniquity upon which CARDS is based.
After dropping out of university, Rogers introduced Grootboom to Aubrey Sekhabi, the artistic director of the State Theatre. The two went on to establish a strong artistic working relationship
co-writing many plays including Not with my Gun, The Stick, and the 13 episode television series, Orlando.
In the ensuing years it would eventually result in his formal training as a director as part of the 52 Seasons Project at the State Theatre where he worked with Lara Foot Newton on CARDS .
"The most interesting thing for me about Lara was that I had never had a woman's input before and I was kind of surprised that she was not shocked by CARDS.
"She kept talking to me about trusting the visuals and not over explaining in the staging process. It helped me tremendously. She is brilliant," he notes.
Grootboom explains that as a result of his informal training, he used to be apologetic, as he puts it "for bringing the cinematic into theatre". But now he feels comfortable with his own style.
"Perhaps now this (filmic style) can be seen as being equally beautiful." For someone already recognised with a top award for his work, unassuming words indeed.
- CARDS is currently on at the Market Theatre. It contains explicit sex scenes, nudity, violence and strong language.