Litnet

Mercy is a theatre production (written and directed by Zubayr Charles). It is part of the 14th annual Zabalaza Festival at the Baxter Theatre this March. Tickets have already all sold out.

Mercy features a cast of talented and upcoming actors: Jennifer Morris, Ibtisaam Florence, Vuyokazi Bulu, Jethro Dylan Thomas and Sharfa du Plessis.

Synopsis: After being sent to an old-age home by her two children, Aunty Kaashiefah Momsen, an elderly woman suffering from dementia, forges a strong bond with her night nurse named Mercy. As the story of this newly formed companionship unfolds, it becomes clear that not everything is as it appears to be with Nurse Mercy.

Zubayr, Mercy has a double meaning. Please would you explain?

I originally wrote Mercy as a short story in 2020 at the Jakes Gerwel Kommadagga nonfiction and short story writers’ residency under the mentorship of writer Rachelle Greeff. Without giving too much away, the original title of the story was Mercy killing, and the main character is named “Mercy Killarney”. Both the short story and the play conclude open-endedly.

It is up to readers and audience members to navigate through their confusion as to what really happens. I love the fact that everyone who read my short story version, and many in attendance at Theatre Arts last year, all had their own interpretation as to what they thought happened in the story.

You are a regular contributor to LitNet. Often, your work centres on psychological and emotional challenges. Here, you tackle Kaashiefah’s dementia and Mercy’s latent schizophrenia. Why should we talk and write about these issues?

I sit here chuckling, as it is hard to answer this question without giving any spoilers. But what I can say is that I first learned about euthanasia or “mercy killing” when I was 16 and in grade 11, from my life orientation teacher named Ms Najma Mohamed at Gardens Commercial High School. Simultaneously, I often visited my mother at Mediclinic, where she worked in administration. One day, the ward was extremely busy, and after seeing a nurse buzzing around in and out of the dispensary, I weirdly thought to myself, “I wonder if a nurse has ever thought of committing euthanasia.” The thought of writing a story about a nurse stuck with me for a long time. Many years later, after I had visited my cousin, my aunt told me a story about their neighbour, who had been forced out of her own home by her children and placed into an old-age home, so that the children could sell the family home. Everything clicked in that moment, and the two ideas meshed together. In 2020, I wrote the first draft of Mercy. As a writer, I needed to layer the story, and I decided that it was important to place a spotlight on both Mercy and Aunty Kaashiefah’s struggles with mental health – that is, adding dementia and schizophrenia into the mix.

When Mercy was first staged, Davine Jacobs wrote a comment about it on LitNet, saying, “It was an amazing production about so many daily issues which don’t get spoken about.” Do you find it a moral duty of yours to bring certain things to light?

As a writer, I try not to box myself by limiting my writing to focus on specific subject matter. I’m inspired by a wide array of topics and themes, but I will always aim to create awareness of social ills. What I have observed in my short lifetime on this earth is that although we are constantly developing as a society in this twenty-first century, there are still many taboo topics, stereotypes, biases and social ills that plague our communities. I listen closely to conversations around me, particularly between people from generations older than me. I try my best to stay level-headed and not get upset with the comments people make. Not to excuse their behaviour – but what I do understand is that many of their ideologies and belief systems cannot be unlearned or changed, and many comments are made out of ignorance or fear. Therefore, in retrospect, with reference to Davine’s comment on our previous review, it is important as a writer to use art as a way to educate. For now, let’s take it one step at a time.

The play also deals with families who are no longer able to look after family members. Is that a growing problem in our society?

In Islam and in the Cape Malay culture, from a young age we are taught to revere our parents and elders, and I know that many other religions and cultures adopt the same notion. Our parents are the ones who took care of us as children, and when they get older the roles are reversed. A common discourse in Islamic and Cape Malay households here in Cape Town is the severe disdain projected onto those who place their parents in old-age homes. My goal with Mercy was to portray the subtle nuances and complexities as to why people make those decisions. Any Muslim knows that only Allah can place judgement onto others, so I wanted to critique and comment on society.

The play mixes English with Kaaps, Xhosa and Arabic. Was that to be more inclusive, or was it simply a way to portray our society the way you see it?

Although I can read Arabic, I do not understand it or speak it fluently. Growing up in an Islamic household and attending madrassa daily after regular school, I was, of course, taught to pray in Arabic. Therefore, to keep the story authentic, it was extremely important to me to showcase certain characters praying in Arabic and add certain words to keep the dialogue local and contextualised. The challenge was to incorporate subtleties in the dialogue to ensure that non-Arabic speakers or those who are not Muslim are able to pick up on certain cues.

As for the mixture of English and Kaaps, many of us in South Africa are bilingual; however, as society grows and language evolves, we need to understand that as South Africans, we are actually multilingual. We often code-switch or use translanguaging when we communicate or teach – many of the characters do this, particularly Mercy. As for the character Aunty Kaashiefah, I knew that an elderly coloured, Cape Malay Muslim woman in her seventies would not speak in English. So, that was done deliberately.

Lastly, and not to give too much away, one character code-switches between English and Xhosa. Again, and to reiterate what I’ve said, the dialogue and characters needed to be authentic and local, speaking in a mixture of languages as we as South Africans do.

You received praise for the way in which you wrote, directed and cast the play. The clever use of suggestion with screens and light was noticed in bathroom scenes, as an example. Where did you learn these skills?

We first auditioned Mercy for last year’s Zabalaza Festival; however, we were rejected in the third and final round of auditions. We were encouraged to stage our own production and re-enter the festival, and that led us to have the opportunity to play around at Theatre Arts, which was extremely vital to the development of Mercy and my own skills as a theatre maker. My training is in creative writing, not theatre making, so there are many aspects to theatre and directing that I’m constantly learning about. As any creative being, it is important to learn from other artists and pre-existing art and literature. Thankfully, at the Zabalaza Festival this year, we had the greatest honour of having three mentors from the Baxter Theatre’s Fires Burning company assisting us with acting, directing and various other technical aspects. In that regard, I want to extend a heartfelt “thank you” to Tamzin Williams, Carlo Daniels and Lyle October, who provided us with weekly feedback, concise notes and constructive criticism on how to improve the play. I will forever be grateful to these three talented yet humble mentors.

The current cast you have for the Baxter run is not exactly the same as when you debuted, and what else can audiences expect from this version of the story?

Because we had to adapt the play to fit into the constraints and regulations of the festival, a few scenes had to be cut and we had to restructure certain parts of the show. There were certain comedic scenes that we retooled, as we realised that the original scene concepts needed to be delivered in a different tone. The acting of Jennifer Morris, Ibtisaam Florence and Vuyokazi Bulu (our original cast members) has improved tremendously during this experience. Additionally, Sharfa du Plessis and Jethro Dylan Thomas (new additions to the cast) have brought their own flare and expertise to the production and their characters. Ultimately, there were many amateurish mistakes that we made with last year’s production, and our show is stronger and has improved tremendously in comparison with last year’s run.

See also:

A theatre review of Mercy by Zubayr Charles

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