For the past few weeks, I’ve been visiting my old stomping ground at UKZN, guest lecturing for the scriptwriting course. Funny enough, scriptwriting was one of my favourite modules back when I was a student. It gave me an outlet to express myself in ways that only words can. Now, years later, I find myself on the other side of the desk, teaching the very thing I once loved. Full circle, right?
But that’s not what this piece is about. No, today, we’re diving into something a little more… unconventional.
Back in my university days as a drama student, I realized something fascinating: We could get away with anything—and I mean anything—all under the umbrella of “drama” or “art.” Society would side-eye us for doing bizarre things, but the moment they found out we were drama students, their judgments would vanish. Suddenly, we weren’t “weird” anymore—we were just being “artsy.”
Imagine this: You’re standing under a tree, dramatically belting out a monologue. Or, in my case, making other students sing monologues (yes, that happened). At any other campus, you’d probably be that guy—the one people walk around rather than past. But not in the arts. No, sir. People just accepted it. “Oh, he’s a drama student. Makes sense now.” And that was it! A literal invisibility cloak made of Shakespeare and Stanislavski.
I used to test the waters, just to see how much “crazy” I could get away with before people caught on. I danced in the middle of the road, wore paint-splattered overalls for weeks, and walked barefoot across campus because I enjoyed feeling the earth beneath my feet. (That one wasn’t for show—that was just me being me).
But none of it ever raised any eyebrows once they knew I was in the drama department. With site-specific works on the rise, the ignorance got worse. It was like we were in on this cosmic joke, and the punchline was always, “It’s fine, they’re art students.”
This got me thinking: Is being an artist a legitimate disguise for madness? Society seems to have this unspoken rule that if you’re loud, chaotic, or even a little unhinged, it’s cool as long as you’re doing it in the name of art. When someone’s causing a scene, how often do you hear the phrase, “Oh, you’re such a drama queen”? Drama and madness, forever intertwined in the public’s imagination.
As the actor Heath Ledger once said, “Madness is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.” In the world of drama, that “push” often comes from society’s expectations—or lack thereof—allowing us to teeter on the edge of sanity for the sake of performance.
But is it fair? Should we be branded as “crazy” or “mad” simply because we’re expressive? Honestly, I don’t know. On one hand, the label can be freeing—it gives us space to push boundaries, to explore parts of ourselves and society that others might suppress. I mean, let’s be real: we drama students often represent that part of society that secretly wants to go wild but doesn’t, out of fear of judgment.
There’s an old quote I remember: “Artists are the most dangerous beings, because they get to be anybody, and live any life, just through realistic pretend.” Maybe that’s what society fears about us—that we’re not afraid to explore what they won’t.
We give people a peek into that sleeping desire, that fantasy they wish they could live out but can’t. Whether it’s on stage or just in social spaces, we embody a freedom that others envy. How many students do you think joined drama back in the day because they were curious about what really happens behind the curtains? Some just wanted to kiss girls on stage or, you know, live out that rom-com fantasy! (Spoiler: they got a harsh reality check. Drama’s not all about love scenes. Hahaha!) “Why do I have to dance? I came to act.” Mwahahaha! “Come here!”
In my time there, I couldn’t help but wonder, “How far can we really push this ‘drama cloak’?” Could we have pulled off something truly outrageous—like, say, punching someone in the name of method acting? How far does the curtain of ‘it’s just drama’ really stretch? What’s the worst we can do and just say, “It’s a drama thing”?
I don’t know if I’m willing to find out. But I will say this: sometimes, it’s a lot of fun to wear that cloak