Source: http://pensouthafrica.co.za/rainbow-scars-by-mike-van-graan/
Mike van Graan chats to Naomi Meyer about Rainbow Scars at the US Woordfees 2016.
Hi Mike, you wrote the script of Rainbow scars. I notice that the play was recognised with an Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown?
Yes, it also received six nominations at the Naledi Theatre Awards in Johannesburg.
We all know which rainbow you are talking about. But tell me: How can an actual rainbow hurt somebody? And leave scars as well? Tell us about your rainbow.
Scars are not only physical. Hurt – and therefore, scars – may take emotional, psychological and intellectual forms too. Rainbow scars uses the metaphor of a family – a white suburban mother, her black adopted daughter and the daughter’s estranged cousin – to explore who the “rainbow nation” actually works for. Despite the daughter and cousin being linked by blood, it is the mother and her adopted daughter who represent the limitations of the “rainbow nation” concept: as one that unites people across race boundaries, but only provided they share similar educational, economic, language, etc backgrounds.
Staying with the rainbow. How about a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Can you give us some hope that there will be something positive, too, something good we can dream about when it comes to our rainbow?
Given where our country is now, I really do understand the deep need of many for hope, for their anxieties about our country and their place in it to be quelled. That the pot of gold has been stolen, or being relocated to Nkandla, feeds these anxieties. However, I see my role as an artist, as a playwright, less as a happy, clappy entertainer, and more as one that uses a scalpel to get under the skin of the “rainbow nation”, to reveal what is really there, so that – by having such a mirror – we as a society may address the storms and turbulence before we can have a sustainable, real (rather than a temporary, superficial) rainbow. I wrote this play after the Marikana massacre; and the miners representing the millions of people on the underside of history in our country who still live in poverty would never be, or feel themselves to be, part of a rainbow nation, because in reality their poverty excludes them from what the rainbow nation supposedly represents: a multiracial society of black, white and everything in between, getting along happily, at school, in their homes, in their churches, workplaces, on the sports fields and in public social spaces.
Getting down to the actual play ... What is it about?
It is actually about all the things above. As a story, it tells of a suburban white woman whose family adopted a young black girl at the age of two, who is about to matriculate. A cousin who lives in a township and whom she has not seen for more than fourteen years re-enters her life with some news about her family. It is this re-acquaintance which raises numerous issues for the daughter about who she really is – her identity, her culture, her family – all the kinds of themes that are so topical in our country right now.
From the play’s summary it seems that the drama is about a family – specifically the relationship between a mother and daughter. Talk about scars! Why does the country invite herself into your play as a character as well? Can she not stay out of it for once? Can she ever stay out of it?
I’m afraid that she – the country – cannot stay out of it. We try, we all do, to have the country stay out, believing that we can just get on with our little lives, and if we do, we can be happy. But an individual is part of a family, a family is part of a community, a community is part of a society, and that society represents and comprises the good and the bad, the hopes and the failures, the tensions and the contradictions of the country. So, an institution like the University of Stellenbosch might want to – and with available resources, be able to – continue in its own right, on its own terms, but it is affected by its location with a provincial context and then within a national and even African and global context; and all these impact on the institution, requiring it to respond in order to survive and be meaningful in the future. That is as it is with our lives, and that is what I try to explore in the theatre work I do: the dialectical relationships between the individual and the collective, the micro and the macro, the local and the more national or global.
There are some pretty talented people involved in this play – please elaborate.
There are indeed. Jennifer Steyn is a multiple award-winning actress, and US Woordfees audiences will see her at her peak in A Doll’s House! Mbulelo Grootboom is a Fleur du Cap winner for Best Supporting Actor (actually in another play I did, Just business), and Kertrice Maitisa, who plays the part of the daughter, will blow audiences away, as she has done wherever the play has been performed. Lara Bye, the director, is well-known for her excellent work on the Afrikaans theatre circuit too, eg with Sandra Prinsloo in Oskar en die pienk Tannie, and Mari Borstlap has produced some great lighting designs. So, yes, a very talented company, and one which represents, er, the rainbow. 
Who is your ideal audience?
I would love as many, and as diverse as possible, audiences to see my work. But theatre – by its nature – is exclusive and available to those with disposable income. Within this layer of society, this play has appealed to high school students (who relate to the daughter), to housewives, professionals, academics and other intellectuals, even people from abroad (it toured the Netherlands and UK for six weeks). I would say that the ideal audience for this play are people who think, people who are interested in the country and its trajectories, and people who are concerned about their place within our society.
When can people see the show and where can they buy tickets?
The show takes place at the Luckhoff High School on 4 March (18:30), 5 March (20:30) and 6 March (11:00). Tickets are available at Computicket for R120.
We will be very happy to talk to anyone who wants to after the performances.
The post US Woordfees 2016 interview: Rainbow Scars by Mike van Graan appeared first on LitNet.