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Tshepang: The Third Testament, about the rape of nine-month-old baby Tshepang in 2001 is a tough watch that Grethe Kemp finds difficult to recommend. But if you have the emotional capacity to see it, you should.
Tshepang: The Third TestamentJoburg Theatre
October 28, 3pmR150 at joburgtheatre.com
4 out of 5 stars
It’s been performed around the world and translated into Zulu, Afrikaans and Croatian. Now the multiple award-winning play Tshepang: The Third Testament by theatremaker supreme Lara Foot will be performed at The Joburg Theatre for the first time.
A two-person play, it’s about the rape of nine-month-old baby Tshepang in 2001 and fictionalises Tshepang’s mother Ruth and her new partner Simon as they live on the outskirts of the town where the rape took place.
Most agree it’s brilliant theatre.
Mncedisi Shabangu commands the stage and takes us through the observations of a traumatised man with a wry and bitter humour. No wonder he won a Fleur du Cap best actor award for the role in 2013.
Though she says but one word in the entire production, Nonceba Constance commands attention as the guilt-racked, psychologically destroyed mother of a brutalised child. The stage is sparse and the props intelligently placed. The lighting is powerful. The dialogue authentic.
But how do you recommend a play about the rape of a baby?
The daily grind of being a South African is violent.
There’s the undefined violence of economic marginalisation and guilt; frustration and poverty; inequality and racial tension. And then there’s the explicit violence of having one of the highest crime rates in the world. When the day is done, few of us have the capacity to take in more trauma. Which is why many don’t go to the theatre unless there’s a guarantee it will make them feel good.
I’m constantly faced with how small the arts scene is in South Africa and how narrow the audience.
Why aren’t we more like Europe where people queue outside museums and clamour to get into theatres? Where art is on every street corner and on everyone’s lips?
Foot’s play forces us to think about one of the most horrific crimes in South African society and not many will be able to do that. At the height of the production, the rape of baby Tshepang is re-enacted with a white bread loaf and a broomstick. During the performance I watched a few audience members walk out at that scene.
But, if you feel you can cope with Tshepang, you should watch it. It presents no easy answers on the why of infant rape, but paints a nuanced picture of economic depression and psychological devastation that might contextualise where it all took place. Foot spent a year researching media articles about the physical and socioeconomic landscape where infant rape is most endemic and her insight into it comes through in her work. The love and tenderness with which Simon responds to his half-catatonic partner Ruth also leaves a small silver lining on a very dark cloud.
