Adrian Dawson in London
A YOUNG playwright from Edenvale is currently earning interest in the West End of London, Britain’s theatreland. Backpay, by 24-year-old Tamantha Hammerschlag, is being staged at the illustrious Royal Court theatre, known for its pioneering of young talent.
Hammerschlag is clearly delighted at having her work staged at the Royal Court. “There is a really good feeling you get from working there. The people at the venue have been very supportive of me and my work,” she says.
Backpay is set in contemporary South Africa and follows Mina, a white teenager, as she goes in search of Sophie, the black nanny who looked after her when she was a small child. Through the characters, played by Britons, it charts the tensions raised in the post-apartheid era.
“I never had a figure like Sophie when I was growing up, someone who raised me, in the same way that Sophie did Mina,” says Tamantha. “But we did have black maids. A lot of the play comes from observation, as opposed to biographical experience.”
She went to the Wits university and it was here that she started writing for the theatre. “I always had my head in a book as a child,” she recalls. “I have wide tastes. The things I wrote at university were performed by the theatre groups there, but nothing professional.”
Backpay is her first “proper” play and was written when she was spending a year studying for her master of arts in drama in London. “All in all, it took about three months of serious writing to finish it,” she says. “But obviously there were rewrites when we started rehearsing.”
Tamantha received a favourable response within two months from the Court, the only venue she sent her completed piece to. “My lecturer at college suggested the Royal Court and it paid off.”
Dominic Tickell, who runs the Royal Court’s Young People’s Theatre, was impressed by Backpay when he read it. “The play was mature and courageous. She was not afraid for her characters to be in a state of flux and for their circumstances to change,” he says.
Tickell reckons Hammerschlag has a bright future. “I think she is more promising than a lot of young playwrights we come into contact with. She is serious about her work.”
The play was first seen as part of the theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival last year and was revived for its West End run, before going on to tour venues in the east of England.
Obviously, Hammerschlag would like Backpay to be staged in South Africa. “I’ve had preliminary talks but nothing concrete yet,” she says.
She is currently working on her second play but is reluctant to discuss it. “It is set in South Africa again. There have been so many changes over the past few years that you can’t help but be affected by what has gone on.”