An Interview with Ashwin Singh

Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media List of Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used throughout the text for quotations from Ashwin Singh’s plays. H To House SS Spice ‘n’ Stuff Sh Shooting RL Reoca Light D Duped BBB Beyond the Big Bangs Sw Swing IG Into the Grey Note on Terminology We have chosen not to unify the authors’ use of the term black so readers are encouraged to think beyond straightforward definitions. Each author uses the term in his or her own way and spells it with either a capital B or a small letter b. Likewise, authors have opted for capital or lower case letters for other ethnicities, such as white or coloured, in accordance with their specific purpose. i https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media An Interview with Ashwin Singh Felicity Hand FH. As a Indian South African playwright, to what extent do you feel expected to write about this community? AS. I see myself as a child of the universe, having enjoyed eclectic life experiences. However, I fully acknowledge that I am Black; a South African; of Indian origin; and that the city that I most connect with is my birthplace and current home, Durban … the city that is part of the Kingdom of the Zulu but also home to the largest number of people of Indian origin outside India. I have been significantly influenced by the cultures of Africa and of the Indian sub-continent. This is unsurprising … I live on the African continent. I enjoy the beauty, the complexity, the music, the literature, the food of my country and continent … and I am Black, because as a boy I identified with the Struggle against apartheid and was part of youth movements fighting against the dehumanising system. I am also emotionally connected to the Indian subcontinent. I have family and friends there. I love Indian music, literature, dance, food … and all those exuberant colours! Due to the racist designs of the apartheid regime, I grew up in what could still be termed an “Indian district” and so was obviously exposed to numerous Indian cultural influences … in my home, at the local temples, at our segregated schools … I want to write about Durban and its complex people. Therefore, it is logical that I would write a fair amount about the Indian community … and it is fair that I am expected to write about this community. However, I believe that I have every right to include characters from other cultural backgrounds in my plays and that I must do so because the Indian community does not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, my plays have a diverse array of characters. Inevitably, there are characters from the Indian community … but there are also characters from the Zulu nation as well as those from Durban’s mixed race communities and occasionally there are White Afrikaans-speaking characters too. FH. Twenty-five years after the demise of apartheid, racial issues still seem to dominate current South African plays. Do you feel under any sort of pressure to include characters from different racial backgrounds? AS. I signed up for a non-racial, intercultural project in democratic South Africa … but sadly, that project no longer exists, despite what some deceptive politicians publicly state. We still live in a racist country. Sometimes, this racism is overt … particularly in ugly spats on social media … but more often nowadays it is https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor 13 Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media Durban Dialogues Dissected covert. And we cannot simply dismiss this as a few ignorant White people who are clinging onto archaic belief systems. There are many racist Black African and Indian people in South Africa. Furthermore, there is significant racism in many of our foundational institutions like schools, universities, hospitals, public companies and government agencies. So the apartheid mentality has not dissipated … and it will remain with us until we truly engage in an honest way about the fact that we continue to use the social construct of race as a divisive factor. So playwrights have to deal with racial conflict and institutionalised racism … it is a lived reality. I have confronted these themes many times in my plays. A few ill-informed artists and critics have occasionally suggested that I have explored this theme a little too much but most people agree that I have to examine what is an integral part of our daily existence. Of course, if you look further afield at the US and Europe, racial and ethnic conflicts are dominant issues currently and storytellers from these places are regularly exploring these topics in their theatre pieces and films. I therefore don’t feel under any specific pressure to include characters from different racial backgrounds … it is just something that I naturally do because, as I have articulated, we still classify people according to race and we are still living in a racist country. So if I wrote only about one so-called race group then I would not be presenting an accurate, layered picture about my city and my country. FH. I hate to raise the age-old question of authenticity, but do you feel that other ethnic groups resent you portraying “their” community in what they may construe as being a negative light? AS. There have been a few artists, critics and members of the theatre-going public who have suggested that I should write only about the Indian community because I have a nuanced understanding of this community … after all, I am Indian, they say. This is a very narrow-minded view. To begin with, very few of these people actually understand how diverse the Indian community itself is … having a variety of sub-cultures in respect of religion, language, rituals, family structure, values and class systems. They assume the community is homogeneous and therefore by living with some of the members of the community I must be able to present an accurate picture of that community. They contend that I will not be able to present a layered picture of other South African communities or other ethnicities because I am not one of those people. This sounds a lot like apartheid-speak to me. It is putting people into boxes again … cultural censorship of the worst order. I have friends from a variety of so-called race groups and ethnicities. I went to a multicultural university. I speak more than one South African language. I may live in what is predominantly an “Indian district” but there are Black African, mixed-race and a few White people living there too. I interact regularly with these people. I live and work in a city where I encounter a multiplicity of 14 https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media An Interview with Ashwin Singh complex cultural phenomena on a daily basis. And I am an academic who conducts detailed research. So of course, I am going to write about all our peoples … and sometimes, some of them will be presented in a negative light, whatever the dominant aspect of their cultural influence. Fortunately, I believe that I present layered characters … people who have quirks, inconsistencies and contradictions, so there are no onedimensional villains. I am happy to state that the aforementioned critics are a small minority. The vast majority of people with whom I have had substantial conversations about my work have no problem with me writing about people from different ethnicities to my own. I have also received very positive feedback about the Zulu and mixed-race characters I have written about … although I don’t recall any detailed analysis of the few White characters I have constructed. FH. There have been a recent number of publications which challenge the historical role Gandhi was said to have played during the years he spent in South Africa. Has your work been at all influenced, perhaps unconsciously, by his legacy or by the need to question his importance for the Indian South African community? AS. Most people with whom I have spoken about Gandhi are very positive in respect of his impact on both the Indian and Zulu communities in our province of KwaZulu-Natal. They contend that he inspired many people within those communities to fight against the injustices of apartheid through non-violent protest action. Of course, his granddaughter, Ela lives in my city and she is a prime example of his legacy – she is a gentle and generous soul who has campaigned tirelessly for peace and justice, in both apartheid and democratic South Africa. I believe that many of the writers of these recent publications have made shallow and overly harsh judgements of a clearly flawed young man. Gandhi himself acknowledged later in life that he had made many misjudgements and prejudicial assumptions in his young adulthood. Naturally, he acquired much greater wisdom through many complex life experiences. Two of our former prominent Judges and anti-apartheid activists, Albie Sachs and Zac Yacoob acknowledged that they had been racist young men because they had been indoctrinated into this prejudicial belief system. They unlearned these attitudes and beliefs as they interacted with people having different value systems. They grew into becoming more enlightened about the world they inhabited and became great thinkers and leaders. Gandhi’s belief in and struggle for equality and non-violence in the world has influenced my work. Many of my plays examine South Africa’s culture of violence. Of course, apartheid was the foundation for this culture of violence but it is still prevalent after a quarter of a century of democracy. And we live in the most unequal society in the world. Lead characters in plays like Reoca Light, Into the Grey, Shooting and Beyond the Big Bangs cry out for greater honesty and urgency in https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor 15 Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media Durban Dialogues Dissected the way that we are approaching this violent way of life as well as calling for more depth and innovation in our attempts to combat growing inequality. FH. How do you see the future of theatre in contemporary South Africa? Do you think it can still create public opinion? AS. In the first fifteen years of democracy, South African playwrights and theatremakers continued our tradition of robust drama which fearlessly explored challenging socio-political issues, as had been courageously done by artists like Athol Fugard, John Kani, Mbongeni Ngema and Lewis Nkosi (to name a few) during the apartheid years. In the immediate post-apartheid world, there was very little censorship and therefore much greater freedom to examine a host of controversial issues, from inequality and racial discrimination to corruption and poor governance to the debilitating effects of violent crime. However, the last decade has seen a significant diminishing of the impact and influence of theatre in South Africa, particularly in Durban. Due to economic factors, political instability, rising urban decay, and distractions like satellite television and the internet, we now have a rapidly diminishing theatre audience. Our Playhouses have also failed to build a young Black audience. Theatre on a Saturday night is simply not an enticing option for the vast majority of South Africans, across the cultural spectrum. This has had a ripple effect with artistic directors and independent producers putting on a lot more light comedy shows and musicals in their venues in order to stay afloat. We have also suffered reduced public funding so daring new works are few and far between. Many young writers and actors, unable to sustain a living from theatre, have turned to television soaps in desperation. Interestingly, South Africa’s film industry is gaining momentum and the government seems determined to offer innovative funding opportunities in this regard. We are still focused on narrow market factors however, therefore the majority of films made are for the popcorn brigade. The above situation is reflective of world trends in theatre and film, although in several places in the world like London, New York, Chicago, Mumbai, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto … there is still a theatre culture. Apart from Cape Town to some degree, the people entrusted with the administration of our theatre world don’t seem to have a clue as to how we could try to build a theatre culture. Yet I am still hopeful that theatre may not completely die and that some powerful theatre pieces may still create public opinion in South Africa. The reason for this optimism is that I have met so many passionate young artists, mostly Black African, who are so eager to write for and perform on our stages. I have mentored some of these multi-talented people on the Playhouse Company’s development programmes and they have inspired me. They are determined to plough on. Perhaps they will, in time, build a brave new audience as well. 16 https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media An Interview with Ashwin Singh I also have to mention some of our stalwarts, who have resisted the temptations of commercial television series and films and continue to put their stories on the stage. The likes of Mike van Graan, Paul Slabolepszy, Mandla Mbotwe, Lara Foot, Sylvain Strike, Aubrey Sekhabi, Neil Coppen…are people of the theatre … this is the medium that they truly love…and they can still pull something of a crowd too! FH. One thing that struck me about some of the recent South African plays I have seen is the juxtaposition of comical features and highly traumatic events. Would you say this is a very South African way of dealing with the horrors of the recent past? How do you feel about using comedy to heal some of the country’s still unfinished business? AS. Yes, this is a South African way of dealing with our horrific past … and our very challenging contemporary issues too! South African artists often use humour as a tool to explore a vast array of uncomfortable truths … and to examine sensitive issues. This is usually done with compassion and artistic nuance, although some artists with limited dramatic range and emotional depth, have presented uneven and superficial works. Pieter-Dirk Uys and Paul Slabolepszy have very powerfully constructed the juxtaposition of comical features and highly traumatic events in their works over the years. I don’t make a rigid distinction between comedy and drama. Life is full of moments of heightened drama or even tragedy followed quickly and strongly by therapeutic or even uncomfortable humour. If we are truly alive, then we cry and we laugh every day. Great drama often contains humorous moments just as great comedy is punctuated with moments of pathos. South African theatre-makers have at times attracted larger audiences to works confronting dark and haunting themes through the clever and disarming use of humour. Many believe that humour can also be a vehicle for social change. I have often juxtaposed comical features and traumatic events in my plays, most significantly in Shooting, To House, Duped and Beyond the Big Bangs. I certainly believe that comedy with substance can be effectively used to heal some of the country’s unfinished business. I must hasten to add that while this juxtaposition may feature more in South African works, it is certainly used by some playwrights and film-makers overseas as well. Some of these artists have influenced my work as well, particularly David Mamet, Harold Pinter, David Lynch and the Coen brothers. FH. You sometimes act in your own plays. Has this helped you to rethink some of your dramaturgical strategies? AS. I think that it has been very useful for my artistic evolution that I am both a playwright and an actor. The two disciplines have different approaches and different energies. Writing is a more intellectual exercise, although one has to appeal to an audience’s emotions as an author. Acting comes more from instinct https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor 17 Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media Durban Dialogues Dissected and it is obviously a more physical activity than writing. Both activities require a substantial understanding of human behaviour. When I write a scene, I then perform it to test if it sounds intellectually and emotionally appropriate. One hears a play (as one sees a film) so I believe that this exercise is critically important. I also ask other actors to perform pieces with me at various times in the play’s development to complete this process. Therefore, the actor’s input (including my input in that capacity) is an important development strategy which I employ. As a result of the aforementioned, performing in the final production on stage does not alter my perceptions too much. However, at various times during rehearsals, particularly with director Ralph Lawson (himself a fine actor), we have made cuts and little tweaks to the script because we have found some passages of some of my texts to be a little unwieldy or simply too verbose. FH. What other South African playwrights have most influenced you? Are you all following similar trends? AS. I have not been hugely influenced by South African playwrights. That is not to say that I do not respect and admire South African playwrights … quite the contrary … but I have followed my own path. I have to some degree been influenced by Athol Fugard, particularly with regard to language and the construction of character. In terms of structure and tone, American playwright (and screenwriter) David Mamet has had some influence on me. Stylistically, I don’t believe that the established South African playwrights are following similar trends. The younger playwrights however, are all quite significantly influenced by film … and I would state that I am also influenced by art films. The younger Black African playwrights also seem to use music (and occasionally dance as well) in their works, sometimes effectively, sometimes not at all. Thematically, the established playwrights still mainly create issue-driven plays, although with declining audiences, some have been tempted to try more frivolous comedies and musicals. The emerging playwrights fluctuate between light entertainment and more serious art. Many of the trainees I have mentored at the Playhouse Company have written works exploring very dark subject-matter. Plays dealing with issues of race, class, growing inequality, government corruption, AIDS, identity politics and violent crime are still quite prevalent on South African stages. I have explored these themes in my plays as well. FH. I was surprised to find out how short plays often run in South Africa. Is this solely due to economic factors or is there a lack of a consolidated theatre-going tradition. If so, what do you suggest could be done to create one? 18 https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media An Interview with Ashwin Singh AS. South Africa has major economic problems. Unemployment and poverty remain our biggest challenges, twenty five years into democracy. Most people simply cannot afford to go to the theatre. Most theatres are also located in the heart of our cities where there exists the real threat of violent crime. So it is cheaper and safer for people to watch movies in the mall … or at home … or simply to surf the web. Economic factors definitely play a role in the shortening of theatre runs in many parts of South Africa, particularly in respect of plays. However, as I have previously indicated, we have failed to build a theatre audience in contemporary South Africa. During apartheid, many White people went to the theatre to see ballet and opera and occasionally a locally made play too. Many Black people also loved theatre but were forced to watch shows in their township halls. This proved very popular and playwrights like Gibson Kente and Ronnie Govender became local legends. This pastime has died out though. The Playhouses belong to everyone now so theatre in the communities is no longer appealing … and of course, there are so many distractions and entertainment options now. The government and big business also don’t care about theatre. We are a sports obsessed nation…and huge money is poured into this while serious art forms like theatre, literature and the fine arts are ignored. To be honest, I don’t believe that the vast majority of South Africans care about the play as an art form…or as a genuine entertainment option anymore. If they want to consume live art, they would rather go to a stand-up comedy show or to a dance piece. I believe that we have to work more closely with schools to build a storytelling and theatre culture. The Dramatic Arts is still a popular subject at school but we need co-ordinated programmes at local and national level between the Department of Arts and Culture, the Playhouses and our schools to stimulate creativity and a serious appreciation for the arts. We need more tours of theatres, more writing and acting workshops, more opportunities for young writers to get their works onto our stages. We need theatre craft to be taught better in our schools so that young people begin to truly appreciate the nuances of theatre. We also need to include more local drama and fiction on our secondary school and university syllabi. Young people urgently need to discover more local characters and authentic African drama. The Playhouses also have to invest in a detailed, innovative process to develop more local writers who regularly create stories which speak to the lived reality of our multicultural world. And South African people have to relearn how to appreciate authentic South African work … rather than cocooning at home watching stale American television. 19 https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media Durban Dialogues Dissected FH. You are a qualified lawyer and yet you haven’t written a courtroom play. Considering how successful this genre is in the US, why haven’t you explored this area? AS. I have seldom found courtroom dramas, whether on stage or screen, particularly engaging. I suppose the extent of the “artistic licence” utilised, so out of touch with actual courtroom procedures, has irritated me. I can understand why people may find the process, in artistic form, quite enthralling but it does not stimulate me. I also think that there has been an over-proliferation of courtroom dramas on American television, exported to the wider world, so the form is becoming tiresome. That is not to say that I have found practising as a lawyer in court uninspiring. It is very challenging, intellectually stimulating and at times pretty entertaining too! It is just that the bulk of the work is done before you enter the court and the world of drama has tended to distort this fact to the point of farce. I must also point out that I have featured lawyers as lead characters in some of my plays (To House, Spice ‘n Stuff, Shooting and Into the Grey) and have examined their professional world in some detail. Therefore, it is clear that my career in law has impacted on my artistic explorations. FH. Some Indian or African authors provide a glossary for non English terms or even ways of pronunciation. Have you ever considered doing this as some of your characters use isiZulu or Afrikaans words and expressions? I must admit that as a non-South African, these glossaries do come in very handy. What are your views on this? Are you saying that South Africa is by nature a polyglot nation? So should the non-South African reader or theatre goer just have to work it out from the context? AS. I did include a glossary in the educational edition of my first anthology, Durban Dialogues, Indian Voice but my publishers and I decided not to include a glossary in the main editions of both anthologies. The educational edition is aimed at secondary school pupils and we felt that they would require a glossary. We believed that mature readers (who would use the main editions) whether South African or not, would understand the language in context. We have not as yet done an educational edition for the second anthology, Durban Dialogues, Then and Now because schools are still using the first anthology and will only get to the second anthology after several years. South Africa has eleven official languages but the fact is that it is mainly Black African people who fluently speak an African language. Due to apartheid, most people over 40 would have been forced to learn Afrikaans at school and so many people in this demographic would have some proficiency in that language, along with English of course. Younger people would have been exposed to their regional 20 https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor Felicity Hand (ed). Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media African language at school but the reality is that English remains the language of commerce, science and the arts. So it would be inaccurate to suggest that South Africa is a polyglot nation. Given this contention and the fact that my anthologies will have many readers from other countries, it would perhaps be advisable that future editions of the books (whatever the version) include a glossary. https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928357650/02 Copyright 2020 African Sun Media and the editor