Interview: Sbuja aka Sibuyiselo Dywili, in conversation about The Salt Lesson

Sibuyiselo Dywili’s new play, The Salt Lesson is making its debut at the Baxter Studio Theatre, from March 17-21 as part of 2025 Baxter Zabalaza Theatre Festival – the 15^th anniversary edition of the festival.  Sbuja (25) – as he likes to be known – talks about the play, life in post-Apartheid South Africa and making art: “I have carefully studied the critical art of Dr John Kani and the late Prof Winston Ntshona. Inside my head, live rent-free, a lot of these men’s ideas; with a mix of mine.”

TCR: Before we get into the play, as you know, I am a huge fan and would like to know about your journey. Please share about where you grew up, went to school, studies and family. Who is Sibuyiselo Dywili?

Sbuja (Sibuyiselo) Dywili: My name is Sibuyiselo Dywili. Those who know me call me Sbuja Dywili. I don’t like to be called Mr Sbuja Dywili- just Sbuja. There are certain names that just don’t go with the word Mr and I don’t have a clue why. Certainly, you cannot imagine a Mr Charlie Chaplin, or a Mr William Shakespeare or even a Mr Jesus Christ. My name operates in that sort of class. I stole that way of introducing myself from Dr Siphiwo Mahala’s biographical one-man-play on the legendary life of the late, Can Themba. This how Can introduced himself. I find myself relating to him very often; his struggles, his devotion to his family, his passion on writing, his passion for teaching, his very sound politics and his agitation on the country’s extreme inequalities back in the 50s, which still persist to this very day.

I grew up in the monotonous Bloekombos, a shanty township in Kraaifontein. I did my primary schooling at Ekuthuleni Primary School, graduated to do my secondary at Bloekombos High School where I joined the school choir and became one of the revered tenor solo singers of the school. Yeah, those who know will tell you I was a beast.

I come from a musical family, with a father who once founded and led a men musical ensemble and a mother who has written a lot of unpublished journals. Since my early years, I was exposed to arts through my parents. In high school I dreamt of being the next Pavarotti. It was my mother who showed me I could be the next Dr John Kani, and since that day, I have never loved anything more than acting. Even writing itself doesn’t come close. I hold an Advanced Diploma in Film Studies from Cape Peninsula University of Technology – where I majored in Screenwriting, Directing and Producing. But in all my achievements and acquisitions, there is perhaps nothing more important to me than the role and the responsibility I like to fulfil and uphold to my three-year-old son. I respect that role. It’s the only character that I get to play once and in all my writings, you will find a thread of a father-son relationship. That is because of my strong relationship with my father; a lifetime experience I will ensure my son never misses. Yeah man. That’s me.

TCR: Did a specific incident inspire The Salt Lesson, which is set in 2019, on a small farm in Kraaifontein?

SD: In 2019, there was an increasing number of farm owners being killed throughout the country. It was mostly Afrikaans farmers, even though many Coloured and Black farmers were killed as well. And this was believed to be an atrocious act inspired by hate toward the Afrikaans farmers. The killers were unknown. And so, they got a name – ‘unknown characters.’ There were descriptions of these ‘unknown characters’ – vivid descriptions enough for you to make out that it, in a way, referred to Black people. This was what was happening in the whole of South Africa. In Kraaifontein alone there were news of a few farmers who were killed. I did not I know them on a personal level. I set the play in Kraaifontein because it is the place I know best, and it has farms and it works for the purpose of the play.

TCR: Is the narrative fictional or based on real people? It says in your media release: “The Salt Lesson deals with South Africa’s urgent and long-standing burning themes such as farm killings & farm labour brutalities, fatherhood, mental illness, land restitution in post-apartheid South Africa, meaningful reparations, white genocide, belonging, identity crisis and racism: an umbrella of themes that are purposely employed by the playwright to enforce the country’s retrospection amidst the racial chaos and divide the country currently finds itself in.”

SD: All the characters in the play are fictional. But the play is inspired by the true events that happened in South Africa in 2019. It is a lot of burning themes that I tried to piece together to make one meaningful piece. In 2023, when I started writing, I spent a lot of time doing my research. I did not want to write any stereotypes to any characters.

Here was a young man who has never experienced losing a parent or loved one to dementia daring to write a character who’s severely suffering with dementia. [As of writing March 15, 2025, Sbuja is 25] I had to do my research. It was very important to me to be accurate about the horror of dementia and to accurately write it from a perspective that will demand that the audience will empathise. Once I had achieved that, only then I could think about where to carefully insert the politics.

I spent almost nine months just researching and writing the character who’s suffering with dementia (played by Adrian Galley). I think I’ve succeeded in writing that character accurately. I wanted to be as true and genuine as possible while arguing a bigger debate that frankly needs to be discussed by the country.

TCR: The story – about a white dead-beat dude going back to the farm of his Black son … It sounds very Fugard, Athol Fugard died recently but I am asking if he was an influence or is that very white of me to ask and perhaps it is John Kani and Winston Ntshona who have influenced you? But Athol Fugard wrote so poignantly about deadbeat white people locked into the past in small towns, so I have to ask?

SD: It’s very interesting you ask that and even compare me to the great Athol Fugard – may his precious soul rest in peace and one day rise in glory.  I’ll share with you something that happened just this week. This past Tuesday, Lara Foot [CEO and artistic director, The Baxter Theatre, Cape Town], came in to watch a dry run of my play while we were rehearsing in one of Baxter’s rehearsal room and said exactly the same thing you are saying, that the writing in it, the premise and the story is “very Athol Fugard” and I quote, “With the recent passing of Athol Fugard, you look like you’ll be the next.” Let me tell you something – I almost freaked out! Knowing that Lara’s writing has also been compared to Fugard. She has been called Fugard’s daughter and knowing the great legacy of Athol Fugard, I was immediately engulfed by gratitude and emotion that I wanted to let it air out – but of course, I did that once I got home and I ended up really looking like an actual crazy young man. Ag. Anyway. I have read a lot of; Athol Fugard, August Wilson, Steve Biko, Can Themba and the Drum reporters of the 50s, James Baldwin. Of course, it goes without asking that I have carefully studied the critical art of Dr John Kani and the late Prof Winston Ntshona. Inside my head, live rent-free, a lot of these men’s ideas; with a mix of mine.

I will not lie – I did not know that this work resembles the work of the recently late Fugard at all. I just couldn’t sleep at night and heard voices in my head during day that I wanted to pause for a moment and write down what these voices are saying to me. My characters speak to me. I hear the laughter and the nostalgia in their voices. And everything they said to me has now come to be a play. Perhaps that is my unbeknownst attempt in continuing the great legacy of Fugard, Wilson, Biko, Themba, Baldwin, Kani and Ntshona. Perhaps that is me penning down my father’s frustrations to his long-time white-Afrikaans construction partner who mistakenly called him a ‘kaffir’ in post-apartheid South Africa, all over a small misunderstanding after two decades of a ‘good relationship’. Perhaps that is just me rebelling against the atrocities that I see every day towards my fellow black people – also conducted by ‘unknown characters’. I don’t know which one it is.

TCR: Why is it called the Salt Lesson? Is this play a cautionary tale?

SD: I don’t think it is a cautionary tale. I titled this play The Salt Lesson because I think we can learn a lot from the things that we tend to overlook until we need them, things like salt.

TCR: You say: “Salt is a golden thread that runs throughout the story, tying together the themes and its physical symbolism displayed in the play.” Can we talk about ‘salt’?

SD: I think the salt is a glue that keeps this family together, despite physical challenges that dare succeed at tearing them apart. The salt is in the food they enjoy together, in the tears that knows no race, in the sweat that knows no divide amongst people. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from salt, who knows.

TCR: Insights into the design of the play – set in 2019 – which is pre-pandemic and how the magical realism is evoked through the design?

SD: It’s set in 2019, in Kraaifontein. Antea Thompson, my wonderful director has spearheaded a vision of a very relaxed and delicate realism style. Solomon Mashiane – who designed the set has managed to achieve this very bare and minimalistic set design– sticking true to the poverty-stricken appearance of upcoming farmers.

TCR: Insights into the music?

SD: Jannous Nkululeko Aukema, the sound designer describes the play as, “an incredibly interesting piece of work that looks at the lives of three very deep and profound characters who are dealing with questions of land; of the history and continual impact of Apartheid on our psychology as South Africans and on our relationships as South Africans.”  And rest assured his sound design is intended to evoke these nostalgic emotions and enthrall audiences with the psyche of these three characters, through the haunting music that accompanies the fourth character who is mostly felt and seen only in particular moments of the play.

TCR: Insights into the characters? You talk about that in the release – anything to add?

SD: Here are insights from the actors. Adrian Galley, who plays Ivan van der Lith in The Salt Lesson: “The story is about three essential characters, one of them stuck very much in the past and undergoing some kind of a mental breakdown, that is my character, and two other characters who are more present in 2025 today. Audiences should come watch this play because it gives them some kind of a poetic insight into South Africa’s past, present and future “

Likho Mango, who plays Young Chris Nyongo known as Miracle in the play describes his character: “Miracle is like a figment of Ivan’s hallucinations or imaginations or dementia-episode-decay, I don’t know what to call it man, but yeah, that. He is the young version that was abandoned by this deadbeat white man a long time ago. He’s like the promise of South Africa – of what this country could’ve been if that young son was not abandoned, was not neglected, was not unnecessarily punished and marginalised, was instead nurtured, attended to, loved and groomed. Imagine if this country never abandoned the proper discussions that it should’ve had about the whole land issue and all the atrocities of the regime, and held all accountable for their actions – what could have become of it? The older version of Chris is very angry, and understandably so, but do you think that he would have been such an angry Black man if he was not abandoned by his white father? I doubt it.“

Megan Choritz, plays Wendy van der Lith (Ivan’s sister): “Wendy is like a bridge between the old and the new, s family bridge between the modern and the old. Even though she is Afrikaans and comes from that kind of heritage, she’s inherited a young black son. There’s a lot of father issues, mother issues and she’s definitely the person who has to try and bring all of that together.“

Thapelo Tharaga who plays the old Chris Nyongo. He says: “Christopher Nyongo is a very average, very ordinary man who happens to be Black and has a long history of abandonment that he carries. When his deadbeat white father suddenly comes to his house and attempts to destroy his reputation, Chris struggles to maintain the integrity of how his mother would’ve loved him to grow up and be. He’s very agitated. I mean, would you not? A man pushes you to the edge, when you retaliate you’re called an angry black man, what is that? That is exactly what’s happening in the country right now. Black people are pushed, provoked, mocked, poked at and they’re expected to smile.”

TCR:  You have said: “The play asks profound questions: What does it truly mean to be forgotten? What does it mean to forget?” Can we talk about dementia in the play and selective amnesia – obviously the latter –unlike dementia is a wilful act – often a convenient fall-back by many whites in this country?

SD: Dementia is a horrible condition and I empathise with everyone who’s lost a parent to dementia. It’s devastating. As I have said, it was very important to me not to be ambiguous in my writing and my take on dementia. It’s a crushing moment for many. I stressed for months, consulting people who’ve experienced it; seeing some who are currently going through it. The only task I had was just to be there for them; give my ear, my smile and listen…. South Africa has frankly not gone through that phase of listening to those who are crying, struggling and dying in the shackles of shacks.

A colleague, Kopano Mashike, calls out Cape Town in her very riveting documentary, The City of Shacks. She’s right. There’s a very clear racial divide that is happening in Cape Town, in fact the whole of South Africa. I’ve experienced racism like many Black people. I’ve experienced it in the most subtle, ‘polite ways’. I usually joke to my friends, that the country has really progressed, we have gone from kaffir to a simple compliment that just says you look unique… OMG I love your hair, it’s so exotic and you’re left wondering what the subtext of that is.

With the employment of dementia in my play, I wanted to dive in the psychology of apartheid: The forgetting that dementia does to its patients and the selective amnesia that apartheid does to its beneficiaries. The post-apartheid amnesia – where apartheid beneficiaries only remember the moments/events that historically work for them, and disregard the rest as just utter nonsense. My character, Ivan van der Lith, is haunted by the memory of his 14-year-old son that he abandoned so many years ago. He confronts the 34-year-old Black man that he sees and does not even think for a moment that it just could be his son. The silent moments of oppression that we tend to face and live through every day and the perfect excuse you get back is: “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t know.” How ignorant can one be?  I had an encounter one day in a debate with a white-Afrikaans woman who had tragically lost her son, years ago. Out of all the things that frustrated me about the legacy of apartheid; her response: “But, Sbuja, people must get of that old wagon [apartheid], it’s not doing anything, it’s past, it’s dead.” I responded: “Perhaps you can start forgetting about that old wagon who is your son. Don’t you think he’s just bones now? It’s the past. It is dead.” I was called an angry Black man. Someone calls my parent’s, grandparent’s trauma and hostile tragedy an ‘old wagon’, but once it’s used right back, you get a label, a tag, an ‘angry Black man’. What constitutes angry Black man? What gets them there? Perhaps I am an angry young Black man and I will own it, with beaming pride. There’s a helluva lot to be angry about and if you can’t see that you’re one of the problems the country needs to deal with, decisively. It must be crushing to be forgotten by a parent, by your people, by your country and that is how Black people feel here in South Africa – forgotten. I wonder – is it crushing -the same to be the one forgetting? What does it mean to forget? Is it intentional or is all just a coincidence? This is very clear in The Salt Lesson – and a lot is argued.

TCR: Can you talk about the process of writing this play, being mentored by Tiisetso Mashifane wa Noni and the challenges of taking the story from page to stage? The play has been through a journey, from a staged reading at Magnet to now but I am interested in the challenges of being a playwright and having to make the play ‘work’ dramatically.

SD: Tiisetso Mashifane wa Noni has been nothing short of extraordinaire. She’s brilliant; very critical and very detailed. I admire that about her. I resonate with that. The play has seen many drafts until the one being prepared for stage, and I can’t not thank every draft that I wrote; they were all essential for me to finally get to this dramatically working and emotionally charged play. When you’re working with such themes, you don’t want to bore audiences with a history lecture, instead you want to draw them in to your characters and Tiisetso has been that eye for me, that eye that watches every new word, new line, new punctuation, making sure that as much as the history is embedded in, it doesn’t lose its sense of drama, its pacing and rhythm. I cannot thank her enough. Writing this play has been a very big challenge for me… I mean I have written a play before, and it was warmly received and did cause quite a stir, but this one is very different from my first play, argues very different themes. My approach to writing it could not be the same as my approach to writing my first play. I do not like to repeat the tactics which have gained me one victory. I must admit though that it has been a very rewarding experience writing this play – even in its early stages. And I’m very proud of that.

TCR:  It sounds like your play gives punch to the tagline, ‘not in my backyard’ which is very much a leitmotif of Tii’s [Tiisetso Mashifane wa Noni] writing. White people are cool with a lot, as long as it doesn’t happen in their backyard?

SD: I think that my play will answer this question perfectly.

TCR: Anything else to add?

SD: I want to thank the Jakes Gerwel Foundation for selecting me into their Brussels to Karoo residency last year. I developed The Salt Lesson deeper at this incredible residency and I am very glad that it’s now coming to stage. I wish to thank Magnet Theatre for helping me prepare it for its first stage reading. I am grateful to the incredible Qondiswa James who was my first mentor, assigned by Magnet Theatre. She has pushed me into writing a very interesting draft that was warmly received at the reading at Magnet Theatre. Thank you to Nadia Davids and her very insightful thoughts and notes on this play while I was developing it to be read at Magnet Theatre. Thank you to the whole Magnet Theatre staff for their support. Thank you to my Magnet Theatre cast: Gavin Werner, Jennie Reznek, Themba Stewart and Sipho Kalako. Thank you to KKNK for giving this play a chance at Teksmark 2025 and thank you to my cast for the Teksmark reading: Gavin Werner, Jennifer Steyn, Vuyo Billy Sekonyela and my little brother, Isemihle Dywili. It takes a village to raise a child and it surely took you all to make The Salt Lesson.

I’d like to thank the inimitable and ever so kind, recently late Robin Malan of Junkets Publishers. Robin was the very first to read this piece when it was still a six-hander and gave me incredible and insightful notes and actor suggestions, like Adrian Galley for the role of Ivan.

✳ Adrian Galley in The Salt Lesson, by Sbuja (Sibuyiselo) Dywili, which is on March 17-21 as part of the 2025 Baxter Theatre Zabalaza Festival. Pic: Supplied. This interview has been lightly edited.