Meas is writing her way back

She speaks to us about creative freedom, resilience and her groundbreaking play debuting at the National Arts Festival

- Busi Lethole

Campbell Meas was standing outside her mom’s salon with a towel around her head and water dripping down her face when she learnt she had won this year’s National Playwright Competition at the National Arts Festival.

“I looked like a crazy person outside a shopping mall crying in a towel,” says Meas as she recounts the moment she told her parents.

Meas wears many hats — actor, writer, director, acting teacher — and she’s recently added playwright to her resume after debuting her first play at this year’s National Arts Festival which is on in Makhanda until 6 July. While winning came as a surprise, it was never her goal.

“The point wasn’t to get accepted or win or anything like that. I didn’t enter this with the hopes of winning.

“And, not to downplay any of that, my focus was I’ve already won because I got to write a play and I got to choose myself. So, everything after this has been an absolute bonus, including winning.

“The point was just to put myself out there, and to get used to continually putting myself out there, because I think there comes a point in every creative’s life and journey where we stop choosing ourselves and we kind of just wait for opportunities to come to us or we wait for people to hire us.

“And so if that’s not happening, we're just sitting around and waiting. And then, for some reason, we forget this work was for us and an outlet for us first. And I think that’s very true as an actor and a director.”

As this year’s National Playwright Competition winner, Meas had her play Vakavigwa staged at the festival. She started writing the script in 2016 with Christine van Hees and Mathabo Tlali, who also performed in it. She partnered with a writing mentor, Refiloe Lepere, who helped hone the play’s focus on central themes. It addresses community, immigration and capitalism, while exploring the complexities of identity.