Hudson Park High School’s new ambitiously heartfelt stage production, The Quigney Has the Blues, explores the impact of the lingering ghosts of an unequal past set against the backdrop of a beloved but decaying local suburb.
The story is inspired by true events experienced by play director and Hudson Park High head of drama, Pierre Perold who lived in Quigney for 10 years. His decade there brought him into intimate connection with the beauty and the difficulties of the suburb and its people.
In the play, Quigney is a medium through which we can make sense of various complexities in SA, where people are living in steep inequality.
He believes grinding poverty is a threat to the dreams of multiculturalism that South Africans continue to hold dear.
The production fulfills a long cherished dream for Perold, who always aspired to write and produce a play set in East London. He feels proud to see the fulfillment of this dream and to share it on stage with his pupils.
“I stayed in Quigney for 10 years and in that time, I made many observations which left a strong impression on me.
“The play is a tribute to the time I spent there, and it is a sad reality that the decline of the Quigney is now a metaphor for our country, with regard to service delivery and development.
“I met people who changed my way of thinking and their impact was so great that some of the characters are based on real people.”
Perold said the play conveyed a deep sense of our collective accelerating descent into entrenched inequality.
“The play is a strong statement about our country’s current situation, where there is still a racial divide and our society has not really embraced multiculturalism. There is still much anger and misunderstanding.”
Besides writing and directing the play, he is also cast in the production and describes it as a privilege to share the stage with the pupils.
“Most of the characters are the same age as the cast members and this enables the pupils to gain skills in empathy and compassion as they are forced to imagine a reality for someone their age that is vastly different and more precarious,” Perold said.
Perold applauds the strength of the acting skills amongst the cast, saying that the pupils expended intense effort trying to their channel their characters and deliver believable performances.
“The play is indeed ‘a slice of life’ theatre and audiences can connect with the events that unfold in the narrative making it a vehicle for transformation personally and interpersonally. The play holds up a mirror to society,” he said.
Pupil Luyolo Tokota plays the lead character of Tulani, also known as Tuls.
Tokota describes his character as an angry black young man jaded by the failures of post-apartheid SA, who as a result, treats everyone around him with contempt.
Tokota said he found his character both exciting and scary but enjoyed playing Tuls because he could relate to the isolating intensity of the character’s anger.
He said that in his performance of Tuls he hoped to humanise the character so that audiences would be able to understand Tuls in the context of his environment and his personal experiences.
“Tuls is disillusioned with the political reality and the lack of employment opportunities.
“I like the character as he has much in common with me, especially with his anger and frustration that I used to have.
“His character is so believable and once I understood him well enough to walk in his shoes, the process became easier.”
The play will be staged at Gibson Kente Theatre in Hudson Park from June 16-21.
