A YEAR AFTER WE TRANSFERRED to Melpark Primary School, my mother decided that Tshepiso and I had to enrol for weekend drama lessons at the Johannesburg Youth Theatre. She was trying very hard to get us off the streets of the township, which had claimed far too many casualties and were breeding grounds for teenage pregnancy, drug use and alcoholism. Tshepiso, who had always got away with more than I ever could, somehow managed to talk my mother out of her own enrolment, leaving me to go through it on my own. And so, in February 2003, I was enrolled for drama and singing lessons at the Johannesburg Youth Theatre in the northern suburb of Parktown, two taxis away from Soweto.
I knew the very first day I walked into the drama class that I would hate every minute of it. There was not a single black face in the room. Not one. It was a sea of strawberry blond and platinum blond. There was long black hair, brunette and even carrot hair. There were all types of hairstyles except an afro or dreadlocks. There were green, blue and grey eyes. There was every race in that room except the black race. It was as if I’d walked into a whole new world, a foreign planet where no black person had ever dared to tread. And I was not only uncomfortable standing in that room, I was resentful. Yes, I was resentful towards all those white and Indian children, not for anything they’d done to me personally but for the vulgar opulence that defined their lives. They were dropped off and picked up by big luxurious cars in the mornings and after classes. They had fancy sandwiches for lunch, food I only ever saw on magazine pages. They wore expensive jewellery and had cellphones. And I, the only black student there, walked from the taxi stop and had polony with cheese for lunch every weekend. I had no fancy cellphone. And yet, back in the township, I was considered privileged! The injustice filled me with resentment and a great anger towards these students and teachers, none of whom was black.
I liked nothing about the Youth Theatre; it represented everything I detested. The elitism of the institution was ten times worse than that of Melpark Primary School. And this time around I didn’t hide my feelings from my mother. I went back home one afternoon and told her straight that I would not return to classes the following weekend. My mother, of course, would hear none of it.
She made it clear that not only would I return but I would learn to enjoy it. She accused me of being an ungrateful child who had no sense of appreciation for the hardships she was going through to give me a better life. I lost the debate. I had to return to the Johannesburg Youth Theatre and deal with the boring and snobbish white children who populated my class.
A few months went by without incident. And then, one day, a director of the theatre announced that they would be holding auditions the following weekend for a big play that was coming up. It was called Sleeping Beauty. All of us were forced to audition for roles in the play. I didn’t put much effort into the preparations for my auditions. I didn’t care whether or not I made the list of the main cast. I didn’t get any of the leading roles but was cast as a slave in one of the scenes.
Rehearsals were torture. It was clear to everyone on set that I had no desire to be part of the production and I suppose no one was brave enough to demand effort from me. When I think of it in retrospect, I realise they were caught in a catch-22. They didn’t want to antagonise me because I was black and, in the new South Africa, white guilt is the cousin of white supremacy. White people are afraid to confront us even on serious matters because they fear that exercising their authority, even necessarily, could be read by us as racism (in most cases it is). On the other hand, they could not take me out of the play because there would be no blacks left in it and this would make them seem racist (again, most of them were). They were all nice to me and, while I wasn’t rude, I didn’t try too hard to fit in with them. During break time, I would sit alone reading or walk around the vast lawn on the premises, picking up pebbles and throwing them into the air. I had no problem being on my own; in fact, I preferred it that way.
One afternoon, after a morning of running around and practising scenes over and over, I was exhausted. When my scene came up, in which I had to run onto the stage and kneel before the wicked fairy Eva who had poisoned Sleeping Beauty, I tripped on the stage. Two of the directors jumped right off their chairs from the viewing gallery and shouted at me. I was extremely upset by this because many others before me had committed mistakes at some point during rehearsals, so I couldn’t understand why my mistake provoked such a scolding. I glared at both of them, swore quietly and ran off the stage. They were hot on my heels. I ran to the back of the building, closed myself in an empty room and sat quietly, anger seeping out of every pore in my skin. A few minutes later, the directors ran into the room. One of them had tears streaming from her big blue eyes. She tried to reach out to me but I turned away, my back facing her. In a calm voice, they pleaded with me to go to the office. Hesitantly, I did. There, both of them apologised to me. One, speaking in a muffled voice, explained to me that they were just feeling tired and I’d caught them on a bad day, to which I responded without thinking, ‘I am tired too and I am also having a bad day so you have no right to take out your stress on me because I don’t take mine out on you!’
That was the second time I’d snapped at a white person. In fact, thinking back, I was never afraid of being vocal about my feelings towards white people. It had to do with my socialisation. For many years in my life I’d been surrounded by men and women who always discussed the painful past. They always discussed the brutality that black people were subjected to under white rule, the brutality of being treated like animals. I grew up going to rallies where songs that spoke about the cruelty of white people were sung. This socialisation left an imprint on my young mind—it taught me to rebel against white authority.
I didn’t return to the Johannesburg Youth Theatre after that. I simply told my mother that I would not go there even if she beat me up. When she asked why, I looked her straight in the eyes and without flinching said, ‘Because I am sick and tired of acting in plays about white sleeping beauties and singing songs by Westlife. I don’t want any part of this. Take me to a community theatre where I can at least act out real stories and sing Brenda Fassie songs. Not this thing of white people.’
She didn’t fight with me. She simply looked at me with a tired look in her eyes and said, ‘Ok, Lesego.’