Homeless People Tell Their Story in New Mike Van Graan Play

Three people tell their stories of living on the streets in Cape Town in a new play directed by award-winning playwright Mike van Graan.

Cyprian Manqola, Jonathan Manuel and Staysher Julies have all been through the Streetscapes programme, which offers training, work opportunities, psychosocial support and shelter to people trying to make their way off the streets. Now they are peer counsellors, helping others find their way.

On Saturday, about 50 people came to watch them tell their stories in “Humans of the Streets”, directed by van Graan, at St Thomas church hall in Rondebosch. This was the third performance of the 40-minute play.

Manqola grew up in Khayelitsha and started living on the streets in Cape Town in 2016. At home, he had struggled with substance use and psychosis. He said his parents were patient at first. “But they couldn’t really take it anymore. They chased me out of the house,” he told GroundUp.

Within a month of living on the streets his bag, containing his clothes, his ID and other documents, was stolen.

He tried to find work, but he said nobody would consider him because his clothes were dirty. “Even if your CV is clean, nobody’s going to take you.”

The play was not the first time he had been on stage. “I used to do rap back in Khayelitsha,” he said. The audience reaction to the first shows had been positive, Manqola said.

He hopes to start making music again. He has started recording songs on a computer and plans to make a music video.

Manuel said he ended up on the streets after his mother died. He had been living on the streets for 20 years when he joined the Streetscapes programme.

“On the streets, you must do something to survive. I began to engage with people who were breaking into cars and robbing people,” he told GroundUp.

He was arrested and spent seven years in reformatories and time in various prisons, including Malmesbury and Riebeeck West.

In jail, he says, he saw “bad things”, including people leaving prison without an eye, with fingers chopped off, and even without an arm. He joined a gang to survive.

“I came out of prison and I told myself that I’m going to change my life,” said Manuel.

Now 39, he lives in a shelter in Woodstock. His dream is to have a stable job and become a father. “I want to have my own place, a family of my own. That is my heart’s desire.”

On the streets, Julies said, “people look at you like you’re worth nothing”.

“You’re just a drug addict and that’s your life.”

Originally from Mitchells Plain, she said things at home were difficult, with a father in jail, and she had left home at a young age. But being on the street, she said, was particularly difficult for women. “I’ve been raped, I’ve been hurt … It’s not a good idea for a woman to be alone out there.”

Since going through the programme, she has moved in with her siblings into a house near the city centre.

She said she appreciated the chance to be involved in theatre.

“I would really like to help people out there, to show them that there is a second chance if they just take the resources that are there,” said Julies.

Van Graan told GroundUp he had recorded the three stories and developed them into a script, which the three had learned. In the script they help each other with translations from Afrikaans.

“In the two performances that we’ve had so far, people have been very generous and very warm in their responses”, van Graan said, and that had made a difference to the way the three actors felt. “They feel that they are being seen,” he said. At one show, one of the actors had burst into tears.

Van Graan said the first few shows “are just the beginning” as there are plans to take the play across Cape Town in the coming months. The next show is at the Central Methodist Church on Thursday, 7 May at 7pm.

The play ends with a call to the audience. “There are thousands of humans on the streets. We invite you to work with us,” say the three stars of the show.

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