Mongiwekhaya: 'The hardest thing is being brave enough to tell different kinds of stories'

Tell us a bit about your upbringing?

My upbringing was fairly eclectic. I was born in South Africa and my family moved me to America when I was three. I grew up there for eleven years and returned [to South Africa] with my family in 1995 and I've been living in South Africa since then.

I got into the art profession despite my parent's best intentions – they're quite happy about it now! – I trained at Rhodes University and have been a freelance artist ever since. I come from quite a mixed art background, I studied physical theatre which involved devising dance and so forth, so I've kept my career quite eclectic for a while, but I've always been writing and this opportunity is the first time the writing has finally been able to step up to a new level.

I See You is your debut play?

Yes, this is my debut in terms of it's the first one that has been recognised on this scale. I've been writing and doing work in South Africa for a couple of years, working with different artists, and I've written for television – basically I've been a writer for hire in a lot of ways. Playwriting isn't a big industry in South Africa, nobody really considers it in that way, writers earn their bread in other ways and then they write plays.

How important has the Royal Court been in getting I See You off the ground?

There were eleven of us who were chosen to take part, and that was the fundamental shift for a lot of us, in that we were being chosen to be part of a process. But also the support and the language that they employed, that this is a worthy art form and that we are practitioners.

Elyse Dodgson [head of the Royal Court's International Department] thought the work was really strong, so she took six of the writers in their mid-stage and brought them to London last year for readings. That was quite a profound experience, it had been 40 years since the last time there was South African plays on the Royal Court stage.

What is your play about?

The story is about a Friday night in Johannesburg, a couple of young born-frees go out to a party. It's also a night when a police officer is realising that his wife is leaving him. The encounter between the police officer and these born-frees leaves them to question their own identity. The cop looks at these kids and realises they are not what he fought for – he was a part of pre-1994 – and these kids are not the ideal, the way they are isn't what he thinks they should be.

In a way it's also just about dealing with the trauma that hasn't been dealt with. South Africans have been told that we are the rainbow nation and rainbows are pretty and shouldn't be questioned, shouldn't be interrogated. There's a whole bunch of people who had to do things and are still traumatised about it, and in a way they end up passing that on to the next generation because no one has actually wiped it clean.

Is the play autobiographical?

Yeah. About 60-70 per cent of it is based on real events, it's been toned down a bit and a few personal details have been fabricated, but on the whole what happened that night happened that way.

When I was writing it one thing I realised was that it was an intimate night, there was sort of like a father and son thing between us, it felt like I knew him very personally.

Was it hard writing about something that was very personal to you?

Elyse told us to write about the hardest thing that we knew we wanted to talk about but hadn't and instantly I knew. The day I got away from that night with the police officer, I knew the only way I was going to 'enact my revenge' per se was to actually turn it into a piece of theatre. So the Royal Court process was quite cathartic because part of it was to let go and concentrate on being honest about it.

Working on the text and watching rehearsals has been like reliving that experience, like the man is back in the room. It was cathartic and personally a little traumatic. But there's no experience that is without some kind of learning, a lot of the questions that I had about who I thought I was as a black South African were quite pertinent and worthy of being considered no matter how vile his actions were.

What has it been like working with Noma Dumezweni?

Fantastic, she's such an intuitive director, how she sees things and how quick she cuts to the point. Our interaction has been great and it's been amazing to watch her working with the actors and how she works with them to get them to discover it within themselves. I've learnt a lot from the way she works.

Was it important for you to have a diverse cast?

You grow up with a certain look and feel of what a story should be, which is often a white character with specific types of problems, so it is a conscious decision to recognise that and write stories that have a specificness to black characters, and then you discover within that that there's a universality that extends to anyone.

It wasn't a pushed consciousness to write this particular play, it just was, but in doing so there was an awakening that was like 'I'm actually dealing with being black, being a man and being a born-free in relation to those who have come before'.

I think the hardest thing about the issues with diversity is being brave enough to tell different kinds of stories and putting those out, and letting the people that can tell that story best actually tell that story.

I See You runs at the Royal Court until 26 March 2016.