Pistorius: A Shakespearean Tragedy

A blog following the new play, Pistorius: A Shakespearean Tragedy, during its run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2017. Brought to you by Mermaids: University of St Andrews Performing Arts Fund.

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BLOG POST #4: Remembering Reeva, Part II - Kezia, ‘Nel/Third Sister’

            “Remember you are special and the world is yours to enjoy.                        Everyone has the right to feel loved and safe.”                                               - Reeva Steenkamp

It is difficult to blame the press for the media frenzy surrounding Oscar Pistorius following the tragic events of 2013. Here was the national hero of South Africa; the man who defied the odds and challenges stacked against him to storm to victory at the Paralympics; a man who could match the fastest athletes in the world whilst running on blades. The ‘blade runner’ was an inspiration worldwide, a phenomenon spoken of in many different languages as the world celebrated his achievements, and his admirers felt motivated to reach for their dreams. This man could seemingly do no wrong.

And yet he did. In a catastrophic fall from grace, Pistorius would now be remembered as the snotty, snivelling killer in the witness box.

Yes, it is easy to focus the pen on this man, to quickly take grasp of Pistorius and forget about the woman left beneath the rubble of his offence. Indeed, here I am, three paragraphs in, and only just mentioning Reeva.

Reeva Steenkamp. She will now only be known in association to Pistorius and his crime. We need to only briefly glance at the headlines to ascertain her secondary position to her killer: ‘Blade Slays Blonde’, ‘Blade Runner shoots Lover Dead', and ‘How Oscar Killed Her’. Here she was, splashed out across the front pages as a nameless female. The pictures that accompanied out-right sexualised her as journalists rushed to mourn the beauty that was lost.

Is this all we are to know of Reeva? That she was the stunning blonde ‘gal pal' to Pistorius? Certainly, I know that coming into this project my own knowledge of Reeva was lacking, whilst I could pull facts on Pistorius in my sleep. So here I am endeavouring to now focus my pen on Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp.

She aspired to be a Lawyer. She studied Law at the University of Port Elizabeth from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 2005. Her friend Kerry Smith spoke of her desire to have a stable career. Contrary to her serious career aspirations, she remembers her as having ‘a beautiful heart and ambition’.

Her mother continues her legacy through the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation which looks to carry out her daughter’s desire to educate and empower women against violence and abuse, reflecting her mother’s testimony that she was passionate about issues like domestic abuse and looked to open a woman’s clinic.

She was an extremely successful model, who loved to horse ride. She faced her own struggle as a horse riding accident left her unable to walk in her early 20s, and she had to learn how to walk again.

I have only scratched the surface of Reeva, whose outer beauty by all accounts reflects her inside beauty too. So please, remember Reeva Steenkamp. Not as the ‘blonde’, the ‘lover’, the ‘gal pal’, but as the intelligent, driven woman and now much-missed daughter, sister, and friend.

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BLOG POST #3: Remembering Reeva, Part I - Karin Sofia, ‘Aunty Arnella/First Sister’

bring all new gold bring all new green home ever so holy over time my endless doubt over wondrous nights brought another novelty grand boy always noting grasping in his inner thoughts t h e g r o u n d brought another near baby abused new growth baby away now greeting t h a t a w f u l s o u n d gone before a noise grabbed m y breath a broken year s h o t m e d o w n

Women constantly live in fear of men's violence. Whether this play is the story of a woman losing her life at the hand of an abusive partner, or a dedicated lover’s fatal yet brutal mistake, we will never truly know. Nonetheless, the question is, and always will be, relevant.

Reeva actively stood up for women's rights and spoke out against domestic abuse. Reeva fell victim to a man's violence, intended or not. And Reeva was forgotten by a world that was blinded by the star power of the man who killed her.

Violence is violence. It must never be excused. It robs women of their lives every single day. Therefore, it is, now more than ever, vital to remember Reeva.

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BLOG POST #2: The Test of Time - Marykate, Producer

                     “We are time's subjects, and time bids begone.”                                  - Henry IV Part 2, Act One, Scene 3

William Shakespeare was born a near 453 years ago, and only last year we celebrated the 400th anniversary of his death. This rather morbid start to my contribution to the blog means to highlight the ever-flowing genius of a man who captured the aspects of human nature so perfectly that it plays central to the play we have written, directed and produced to appear at the Edinburgh Fringe in the year 2017.

The relevance of the words and actions embedded into the notorious characters of Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello are screamed out by Pistorius in his monologues and throughout this production, revealing truths of both the characters and audiences. The clear parallels of Macbeth’s strive for fame and success, Othello’s jealous lust to kill and Hamlet’s ever looming loss of a father figure are retold in the form of Pistorius, whose tragic fall erupts into one of the biggest scandals to engross the world. This is intensified by the re-imagining of the three witches from Macbeth as gossipy talk show hosts, placing the farcical fascination of the media and Shakespeare’s groundlings in the spotlight, once more reiterating the cathartic state of human nature.

Similarly, Shakespeare’s desire to give a voice to strong females continues in the form of Eunice, Pistorius’ cousin. Gifted with the same determination as Juliet to think differently from her family and the courage of Rosalind to ask uncomfortable questions, the character’s development parallels that of Countess Olivia in Twelfth Night, retelling Shakespeare’s desire to outline the opportunity for women to abandon the beliefs inbuilt by their families to rather think free and embrace opposing thoughts.

Thus, Shakespeare’s genius beats the test of time as claimed in Henry IV Part Two by the character Hastings, and supplies the perfect language, imagery and insights through his characters to recast the scandal of Pistorius to its ‘Shakespearean proportions’. And it’s been an absolute pleasure to produce and be a part of.

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BLOG POST #1: A Brief History of Pistorius: A Shakespearean Tragedy, Part I  - Isaac, Playwright

This play first came to life when Reeva Steenkamp had hers tragically taken away. At 17, I had written a pretty lengthy monologue inspired by the question plaguing every television, radio, and mind around me: why did Oscar Pistorius kill his fiancé?

The idea was simple. To peel back the motivations of a man who shot his lover dead through a door, I would reshape Pistorius’s real courtroom testimony as though William Shakespeare had written it. For by looking to a playwright who for four hundred years had been used to explain, explore, and perform why ‘great men’ do terrible things, I thought I’d research what made Pistorius seem less ‘great’ from the beginning – or, in other words, the flaws more complicated than ‘he was stupid and mad’.

In doing so, I would quickly discover how, for example, one could link the hero of Hamlet tackling the death of his father with, say, Pistorius reportedly tackling the estrangement from his own living father, Henke Pistorius.

I went further.

With the Scottish Play in one hand and interview transcripts of Pistorius’s past lover in the other, I saw his own nerve-wracked obsession with victory at the Olympics as alike the guilt-ridden Macbeth’s blinding hunger for power.

I went FURTHER.

The 'begrimed’ and undesirable body of Othello’s own self-image suddenly bore a powerless symmetry with Pistorius dreading his own flesh-ridden disability! This was crazy. Like Othello, when Pistorius suddenly killed his lover, he too would claim that he had done so out of reason and fear – both turning their vulnerabilities into acts of horrible domination they would swiftly come to regret.

So the idea was nearly there.

But the push to actually write a whole play depicting these images, and sensitively organise them into a somehow entertaining storyline, wouldn’t come until three years later. The challenge of taking this literary comparison with real, heart-breaking events that affected real, heartbroken people seemed to therefore take a little growing up on my part. And soon the right opportunity would come my way.