Writer and director Zubayr Charles bravely tackles the sensitive themes of male sexual assault, hook-up culture and online dating.
Artscape Theatre, in conjunction with the Suidoosterfees and the City of Cape Town, recently presented this bra’s a psycho, written and directed by Zubayr, a UCT Master’s in Creative Writing graduate. His narrative follows THE BRA, who, after waking up in an unknown warehouse, must face the brutal aftermath of sexual assault. In his search for love and healing through dating apps, things take a dark turn, ending in him becoming a serial killer and partaking in a chilling killing spree. But someone is watching … and justice is coming.
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Cape Town-based actors James Stoffberg and Anzio September, both UCT Theatre and Performance graduates, bring this intense thriller to life. James portrays the unravelling psyche of a serial killer, and Anzio seamlessly flows and embodies the policeman investigating the murders and THE BRA’s victims.
The production made its debut at this year’s Women’s Humanity Festival, following its resounding pitch and staged reading at the 2024 Artscape New Voices Programme. Here, Zubayr and James offer insights into making this suspenseful scene-stealer.
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Why a crime thriller?
My inspirations weren’t linear. About a year and a half ago, I experienced a particularly difficult break-up. My ex-partner started blackmailing and tormenting me. Ironically, at that time, the British black comedy-drama thriller Baby Reindeer was popular. When my ex sent me emails, he too ended them off with ‘sent from iPhone’.
During that time, I was so anxious that I couldn’t eat or sleep, and came close to quitting my job. I started watching true crime fiction series, as well as traditional thriller films – perhaps not the best way to work through my feelings. My biggest inspiration was a film called Promising Young Woman, a sexual assault revenge thriller. I put pen to paper to tell my version, which was a psychological crime thriller from a male, Capetonian and queer perspective.
this bra’s a psycho is a frame narrative – a story within a story within a story. The outer frame is the psychological component, where THE BRA is trying to figure out what happened to him at a party in a warehouse, because he doesn’t remember; all he has are his fragmented recollections, represented by a circle of various props on the floor around him, offering clues.
Then, there’s the crime facet, the policeman trying to solve the mysteries surrounding the murders that THE BRA commits. As those narratives unfold, THE BRA goes on a killing rampage while still trying to catch the perpetrator of his sexual assault. Thus, the last cat-and-mouse aspect comes into play. As with any thriller, there’s a massive twist at the end.
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The script
There’s a lot of subtext involved. From the moment you meet the policeman, you can pick up that there’s something wrong with this dude. Even in his conversations with THE BRA, he leaves breadcrumbs for the audience, leaving them wondering: THE BRA thinks he has the upper hand, but does he?
When depicting the murder scenes on stage, THE BRA is always placed higher than his victims. You’ll notice that none of the characters speak for longer than one sentence, two at most, which mirrors how people communicate on Grindr, as well as being a nod to online dating in 2025. Let’s see who is more disinterested in the chat. We grow accustomed to not expressing our true feelings. We are told not to be weak.
Why the Bra?
The main character, ‘THE BRA’, remains anonymous, and the audience never knows his name. This, of course, references the mysterious profiles on Grindr. The term ‘bra’ is also colloquial – a term I use for my girlfriends, family or with regular brasse – and that made this bra’s a psycho catchy. The original title of the play was this boy’s a psycho, and all the transitional sounds are mixed with pop songs that have the word ‘boy’ in their title or lyrics. I wanted to add that Easter Egg for the audience, but with James’s input, we decided to stick with this bra’s a psycho.
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James on tackling a sensitive subject
The subject matter of this play is topical. I remember last year hearing about a syndicate in Cape Town and Johannesburg that targeted gay men via Grindr, invited them to a hotel room, and when they got there, multiple men would lock the door, tie them up and steal their money or worse. These things happen! But when you hear about it on the radio or see it on social media, you soon forget about it. I wanted to do this issue justice by putting it on the stage.
It’s not just a queer story, but a coloured story, and not just from a male perspective. Many people can relate to it. Gender-based violence doesn’t just happen to women. Someone I know came to see the show last night. She’s in her thirties, on heavy mood stabilisers, and the play evoked many feelings within her that she’s tried to lock herself away from for many, many years.
As a coloured story, we must steer away from the traditional gangsterism storyline. People often say everything is about queers and so political, but that’s not true. Sometimes, the stories are light-hearted, and it’s good to tell those, but with this coloured, queer story, we want to explore the darker underbelly of hook-up culture.
When I was at university, I’d meet people on dating apps, and I wouldn’t know the person whose house I was going to late at night or their intentions. I didn’t tell my mom, so if something had happened to me, no one would’ve known.
James is onto something
this bra’s a psycho forcefully confronts you with graphic violence, and a spectrum of emotions, madness, rage, pain, torment, confusion, vulnerability and shame. It’s raw, honest, uncomfortable, and at times it even makes you sick to your stomach. But you feel and understand it all. Unlike a news headline, this isn’t a story you’ll forget.
This article was written and supplied by Lisa Abdellah
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