'Rape' upsets at Aardklop festival

Potcehfstroom - An upsetting rape scene involving Jesus during a performance at the Aardklop festival has caused quite a debate, reports Beeld.

The play Woza Andries?! which is based on the piece Woza Abert!, portrays South African youth in a post-apartheid world. In the piece, Jesus is portrayed as a coloured woman who is raped in one scene during the story.

This is the first time that Woza Andries?! is performed at any Afrikaans festival in South Africa and has upset some people attending the festival, causing one audience member to burst into tears.

During a performance at the Totius Hall on the Northwest University campus grounds, 22 people got up and left the hall after the scene in which Jesus is raped.

Scene was 'very explicit'

"I expected this to happen, but I didn't think that so many people would leave the room," says Christiaan Olwagen, who directed the play. "I wish people could have stayed until the end of the performance and understand the message the play was trying to convey."

One of the women in the audience who left the hall said the scene was "very explicit", but that she understood what they were trying to do. "Maybe it is because the scene was so close to home, that it is affecting me so much," she said crying.

According to Marguerite Robinson, the programme manager at Aardklop, the play is not meant for everybody, but she still thinks it is a pity that the people left the hall.

"If they stayed longer, they could have understood the play in perspective," she told Beeld.

"The youth should have a platform. Where else can they express their opinions? You can say you don't agree with this, you can ostracise the play as much as you want, but it takes away their right to express their opinions," Robinson said.

Acrtress and writer Henriëtta Gryffenberg, famous for her work on the SABC2 series Erfsondes, congratulated the cast on their performance.