Helen of Troyeville is a poetic solo drama featuring the character Helen Jennings, a former Black Sash member, and committed ‘New South African’, reflecting on her life as she experiences an opportunistic crime in our contemporary, post-apartheid society.
Helen of Troyeville is a solo play that features Helen Jennings, in her mid-to-late seventies, reflecting on her life. While it is not her story, it is inspired by Helen Boonzaier, a woman in her mid-eighties who lived part of her life in Troyeville, Johannesburg, was a member of the Black Sash and so had a general anti-apartheid orientation and who now seeks to make a contribution to the new South Africa having lived a life of relative privilege. Helen Boonzaier is one of Mike’s long-term ‘Angels’.
Helen Jennings (white), lives on her own in a beautiful house in a city suburb. Two young black men ring the bell and ask for bread or money. Being of good heart, but wanting to encourage them to work for their money, she invites them in and gives them some basic tasks (washing her car, moving flower pots, etc). Seizing the opportunity, the two men lock her in her guest bathroom and proceed to ransack Helen’s house. With the bathroom being her ‘cell’, Helen reflects on her life with the structure of the play generally following the stages of grief i.e. Shock, Denial, Guilt, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and finally, Acceptance. The ending is open-ended.
The piece is written by Mike van Graan, author of The Good White (Naledi Theatre Nominee for Best New Script, 2025); To Life, With Love (2025) commissioned by John Maytham and My Fellow South Africans (Best New Script – Independent Theatre Awards 2024; Best Solo Show, Woordfees 2023, Bronze Award winner, National Arts Festival, 2024).
Zolie Markey, more known with the Afrikaans television world, e.g. Nommer Asseblief, has participated in a number of Afrikaans, English and German movies.
First performed by Gina Shmuckler under the direction of Lesedi Job in 2018 at the National Arts Festival, Helen of Troyeville will be staged in Cape Town for the first time in 2026.
For more information about Mike van Graan