HAS Interview

The Hampstead Authors' Society

Zsuzsanna Ardó: The Price of Betrayal

In conversation with Dirk de Villiers, about his play, Christine

Zsuzsanna Ardó: The play was triggered by a painful personal incident that you experienced in South Africa several decades ago: the realization that the law has warped your instinct to help another in need – just because of the pigment of her skin. What other similar experiences can you recall from the time, and what were your coping strategies?

Dirk de Villiers: The play was, indeed, triggered by a painful personal incident – failing to help a coloured woman with her suitcase because I feared arrest under the Immorality Act. But it spawned only the germ from which the play later developed. I cannot recall a similar experience but I coped because while in South Africa, I strove to show coloured people that colour played no part in my dealings with people. My suitcase incident, while painful for me, was also way down the list of apartheid acts committed at the time.

ZA: How long was the gestation period from the trigger experience to the idea of writing the play about it? And how strong is the correlation between the characters and people you actually knew?

DV:The gestation period stretched over decades. I wrote two books – a novel and travel book – and numerous articles and short stories in between. There is little correlation between the characters and people I know. They are mostly inventions. I had an uncle somewhat like Philip.

ZA: How did then the idea for a play turn into the writing process itself?

DV: I wish I knew! It is totally mysterious... just something that happens in the minds of writers of fiction, I suppose: ideas forming in your mind, and linking. Sometimes the ideas flow, then slow down. Twice while writing my novel I did not know how to proceed... and on both occasions after a night's sleep woke up with the solution. Can't explain it. But I am grateful for it!

ZA: The action mostly takes place in 1970. Its surface concern is segregation, behavioural codes' impact on the soul – in different ways and to a different degree, not irrelevant today either. However, would you agree that the main theme of the play is betrayal and the price you pay for it? Could it be its alternative title?

DV: Certainly, the main theme of the play is betrayal and the price paid for it. And it could be an alternative title.

ZA: The play suggest that betrayal is more of a crime than murder. How would you unpack this thought?

DV: I don't think the play suggests betrayal is more of a crime than murder, so speculation about it falls away.

ZA: I recall that the play begins with the protagonist-narrator stating, while testifying to the TRC, that betrayal is worse than murder. His words are positioned in a very powerful position within the structure of the play, hence pitching the tone and thesis of the play. This does not seem to be counterbalanced later in the play except for response of the Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Hence my question above. Can you elaborate?

DV: You're right! Philip Keebler did indeed say betrayal was worse than murder. I had forgotten this, and took your question to mean that I personally thought so. Hence my reply that the question fell away. However I cannot see, as you contend, that these words stated "the tone and thesis of the play". The man before the TRC is someone who has been haunted for many years by guilt. He has an awful sense of personal betrayal. He is over-wrought, sensing finally a possible way of shifting this heavy psychological burden. In that fevered state he is liable to exaggerate... as he does with his statement that betrayal was worse than murder. That is how I viewed it at the time the words were written, and still do. I think my opinion of how Philip's "betrayal is worse than murder" statement should be viewed is supported by the scepticism of the Chairman of the TRC.

ZA: Christine’s character gives the play its title although she has just a few lines and not much stage time. Ultimately we learn how her life was derailed, spent her youth in a convent, and that she is artistic. But not much of her inner life is revealed. Not giving her more of a voice may have been a conscious choice on your part – for example, to reflect the actual dynamics of the time, and how uneasy and absurd this feels for us today. Have you considered at some stage giving her more voice, given that the play is about her life as much, if not more, about the white part of the Keebler family?

DV: The character of Christine is central to the plot – and so deserves to be in the title – but the play is more concerned with exploring the deforming effects of apartheid on the white psyche than on the black. If Christine was given more voice in this play it would have been out of character. She has newly arrived from a convent upbringing, finds herself among strangers in an environment totally different from what she is used to. For her to be holding forth would have been totally wrong. And the play ends with the police hammering at the door. Perhaps there is another play following the Keebler family later with a talkative Christine – but then I've killed off the mother!

ZA: Christine is framed by Philip Keebler’s court scene at the TRC. How typical is Keebler’s case? In what ways was the Commission successful and unsuccessful, and why?

DV: I have no idea whether Philip Keebler's case is typical of ones before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The TRC just presented itself as the perfect framework for the play. I understand there were individual cases heard with applicants seeking closure. But I do not know enough about the Commission to speculate on its success or failure. I went only on what I read in papers here: I have lived in Europe for more than 40 years, in Spain. Portugal and on a Greek island, but mainly in London.

ZA: You have mentioned that you are still haunted – in what ways, and how do you cope with it?

DV: Haunted? From time to time I re-live my failure with the suitcase. But then, compared with the evil actions of many others in those days, I realise it hardly registers on the apartheid scale of iniquity.

ZA: How many generations does it take to forgive historical traumas? Philip Keebler seems to be forgiven too fast, and by the wrong person. Whose right is it to forgive: the judge’s or the victim’s? What is your response to the argument that the play’s ending is a bit hasty and emotionally unearned?

DV: I have no idea how many generations it takes to forgive historical traumas. The TRC seemed anxious to forgive where it could, and let the country go forward. Did Christine forgive? Seems so as they appear together at the end. But as I said this belongs to another play, not this one. Is the play's end "hasty" and "emotionally unearned"? People are entitled to that view. I thought it was just right.

Christine, directed by John-Jackson Almond, is playing at the New End Theatre, London, till 10th of September.