From tsotsi to national treasure

PRESLEY Chweneyagae, who drew widespread acclaim as the young star of Tsotsi (2005), a township-set drama that won South Africa’s first Academy Award for best foreign-language film, died on Tuesday at his home in Pretoria. He was 40.

- EMILY LANGER

The cause was respiratory complications, said a family spokesman, Mzwakhe Sigudla.

Chweneyagae grew up in an impoverished township and studied acting on the encouragement of his mother.

“She didn’t want me to end up like most of the guys I know,” he told the Times of London, “so she took me to this drama institution”.

Chweneyagae appeared in stagings of works by Shakespeare, playing the title character of Hamlet, Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, and Bottom and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

For Tsotsi — his first feature film, released the year he turned 21 - Chweneyagae immersed himself in a more contemporary drama, one set close to home in Soweto.

He played a gang leader hardened beyond his years by the loss of his mother to Aids, the abuse visited upon him by his alcoholic father and the hardship of life in a shantytown and on the streets. He is known, simply, as Tsotsi, loosely translated as a hoodlum.

The film, directed by Gavin Hood and based on a 1980 novel by the venerated South African playwright Athol Fugard, was unsparing in its depiction of violence.