These hit a nerve because inhabiting or performing racial identity has long been allied to the exercise of power: it is tied to economic opportunity, to one’s position in a social hierarchy, and to perceptions about beauty, aptitude and worth. Of course, in countries like SA and the US, these norms and codes were legally enshrined via segregation. No wonder, then, that many lighter-skinned “black” people attempted to pass as white.
One of those who successfully did so was Benjamin Johannes Petersen, a coloured man who in 1944 (when he was 28 years old) began living as a white man. He married a white woman, and over the next decade — as the apartheid government passed the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, the Immorality Act, the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act and more — he had white children.
His daughter, Erica, became an actor; we know her today as Bo Petersen. In Pieces of Me, which had its SA launch at the FynArts Festival and the National Arts Festival in June before transferring to the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town in July, she revisits her father’s story and the impact it has had on her wider family.
Petersen discovered the truth about her father by chance when she was a university student. By that stage, she had already set her sights on a career as a performer. She would later see that throughout her life until that point, though she was not aware of it, she had been part of an elaborate performance. Actors have to know who they are before they can comfortably immerse themselves in a role — ironically, as a young professional, Petersen discovered that she had no authentic sense of self to call on.
This friction is put to productive use in Pieces of Me, when Petersen, now a veteran of stage and screen, employs a metatheatrical conceit: as audience members we are encouraged to reflect on the theatrical process, about what it means to “play a part” or to “be yourself”, while we are watching her portray a variety of different selves. Through her aunts and her grandmother, we discover the effect of her father’s decision to “try for white”.
Pieces of Me was developed as a solo show in the US, where Petersen now lives, but for its SA incarnation she shares the stage with her cousin Chris Petersen, whose musical accompaniment and occasional interjections add both poignance and playfulness. In one sense, their unity suggests an overcoming of the rifts that apartheid created in so many families. Yet the play also reminds us that the wounds of segregation, racism and colourism remain fresh. It closes with the Shakespearean injunction, “To thine own self be true” — which is, after all, easier to say than to enact.
• Pieces of Me is at the Baxter Theatre until July 27 and the Hilton Arts Festival from August 2-4.
This article was originally published in Business Day.
Culture
Chris Thurman: Solo show explores wounds of segregation and racism
In ‘Pieces of Me’, Bo Petersen depicts the far-reaching effects of her father’s decision to ‘try for white’
Image: Ingrid Fadnes
With the help of philosophers of language like JL Austin and feminist theorists like Judith Butler, we have come to recognise identity as performative. Through our speech acts, through our gestures and — especially in a digital age — through the virtual versions of ourselves we project into the world, we create and curate identities.
To be recognised, however, we are expected to conform to certain categories. And so the world also imposes our identities on us through performance; for Butler, famously, this starts the moment we are born and someone declares “it’s a boy!”, or “it’s a girl!” Our bodies can speak, but they often do so ambiguously, and others choose how to “read” or interpret them. Thus, as Butler puts it, “we are both formed and we form ourselves, and that’s a living paradox”.
The implications of this paradox for debates about gender identity are one thing, but what about race? It’s not uncommon for white people to “perform” blackness, from long-term identity fraudsters like Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug (Americans who built their careers as people of colour when they were not) to the crass caricatures of blackface and even well-meaning instances of imitation via cultural appropriation. Black people can also be accused of “acting white” — of being a coconut.
Deconstructing the poet
These hit a nerve because inhabiting or performing racial identity has long been allied to the exercise of power: it is tied to economic opportunity, to one’s position in a social hierarchy, and to perceptions about beauty, aptitude and worth. Of course, in countries like SA and the US, these norms and codes were legally enshrined via segregation. No wonder, then, that many lighter-skinned “black” people attempted to pass as white.
One of those who successfully did so was Benjamin Johannes Petersen, a coloured man who in 1944 (when he was 28 years old) began living as a white man. He married a white woman, and over the next decade — as the apartheid government passed the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, the Immorality Act, the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act and more — he had white children.
His daughter, Erica, became an actor; we know her today as Bo Petersen. In Pieces of Me, which had its SA launch at the FynArts Festival and the National Arts Festival in June before transferring to the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town in July, she revisits her father’s story and the impact it has had on her wider family.
Petersen discovered the truth about her father by chance when she was a university student. By that stage, she had already set her sights on a career as a performer. She would later see that throughout her life until that point, though she was not aware of it, she had been part of an elaborate performance. Actors have to know who they are before they can comfortably immerse themselves in a role — ironically, as a young professional, Petersen discovered that she had no authentic sense of self to call on.
This friction is put to productive use in Pieces of Me, when Petersen, now a veteran of stage and screen, employs a metatheatrical conceit: as audience members we are encouraged to reflect on the theatrical process, about what it means to “play a part” or to “be yourself”, while we are watching her portray a variety of different selves. Through her aunts and her grandmother, we discover the effect of her father’s decision to “try for white”.
Pieces of Me was developed as a solo show in the US, where Petersen now lives, but for its SA incarnation she shares the stage with her cousin Chris Petersen, whose musical accompaniment and occasional interjections add both poignance and playfulness. In one sense, their unity suggests an overcoming of the rifts that apartheid created in so many families. Yet the play also reminds us that the wounds of segregation, racism and colourism remain fresh. It closes with the Shakespearean injunction, “To thine own self be true” — which is, after all, easier to say than to enact.
• Pieces of Me is at the Baxter Theatre until July 27 and the Hilton Arts Festival from August 2-4.
This article was originally published in Business Day.
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