Taken from the prison correspondence of Simon Tseko Nkoli, Your Loving Simon is a reminder of the remarkable character of the gay activist and Aids activist who died in 1998. Robert Colman was inspired to continue portraying gay life on stage after scoring success at the Sydney Mardi Gras in 2001 with his historical look at gay Africans in Johannesburg in the play After Nines.
How did this play come about?
I knew Simon, the fact that he was instrumental in organising the first gay and lesbian pride march had an impact on my life. It’s been a personal passion. I thought about the letters of Simon Nkoli that I had been looking at in Gala [the Gay and Lesbian Archives] for various articles I’d written. That’s where the idea started. It became a difficult idea to realise. It has taken two years of research, thinking about the responsibility of telling a story of somebody so recently deceased, so highly politically connected. With people presently in government mentioned in his letters — people he was in prison with for the Delmas treason trial. It finally came about by doing a residency project at the Market Theatre Laboratory, working with two actors, Bheki Vilakazi and Fourie Nyamande.
What information did you get from the Gay and Lesbian Archives?
They have a collection of Simon’s letters written from prison to his white lover, and other letters written to friends. They have a collection of photographs of Simon’s and a collection of press clippings around the Delmas treason trial. This amazing collection of letters starts with a note he left his lover the day before he was arrested, not knowing he was going to become one of the treason trialists. He left this note saying, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe the next day.†He was arrested in 1984 and it was from then that we have this series of letters covering his time as awaiting trial prisoner to his release in 1988 or 1989.
What did you learn about Nkoli from your research?
During his imprisonment as one of the Delmas treason trialists along with Mosiuoa ‘Terror†Lekota and Popo Molefe and Frank Chikane — three of the big names — there was a scandal in the prison when a warder delivered a note, which was proof that one of the treason trialists was arranging a meeting for sex with a common-law criminal. Political prisoners at the time had a code of conduct where they did not indulge in those practices. They set themselves above common criminals because they weren’t criminals. And this had to be discussed among the 22 men. And because of the homophobic reaction from some of the other men to this scandal, Simon came out. Some of the people he was in prison with knew he was gay — he was already an out gay man when he went into prison. So, from him making this choice they were confronted with other choices — should this man be tried separately? Should he be tried with them? Some people were frightened and opposed, thinking that the state would get Simon to turn state witness. They thought the state would use his homosexuality as a weakness and manipulate him with it. That particular incident, I believe, had a very direct bearing on the sexually equality clause in the Constitution today. I’m not saying Simon Nkoli was solely responsible for it but his act in prison, that chance that he took, I think has a very direct bearing on the equality clause today.
How have you chosen to stage the life of Nkoli?
Initially I was going to make it a one-man show. But what I’ve ended up doing is a two-hander loosely based on Nkoli’s prison letters. I’ve created a completely fictionalised cell mate because in fact all 22 men were in communal cells as awaiting trial prisoners. I’ve created a fictional cell mate by the name of Madoda and told the story of a friendship that develops between two men sharing a tiny space over three to four years; how that friendship is confronted when Simon makes his choice of coming out; how his friend turns against him and how that is resolved.
Your Loving Simon shows at the Laager Theatre at the African Bank Market Theatre from April 15 to May 18. Book at Computicket or Tel: (011)Â 832 1641