Mvotyo, Nopasile Mvotyo, Nosomething Ntese, Tandiwe Lungisa, Tsolwana B Mpayipheli
Creator and Director Yael Farber
Assistant Director and Dramaturgical Contributor Yana Sakelaris
Vernacular Text Translators Current and past cast members
Instrument and Song Arrangements The Ngqoko Cultural Group
Set Designers Larry Leroux and Leigh Colombick
Costume Designers Natalie Lundon and Johny Mathole
Lighting Supervisor Paul Peyton Moffitt
mise en scène
This work should never be played on a raised stage behind a proscenium arch, but on the floor to a raked audience. If being presented in a traditional theatre, the audience should be seated on stage with the action, preferably with all drapes and theatre curtains stripped from the stage and the audience in front of, left and right of the performance. Contact with the audience must be immediate and dynamic, with the audience complicit – experiencing the story as witnesses or participants in the room, rather than as voyeurs excluded from yet looking in on the world of the story.
The ideal venue is a bare hall or room – much like the drab, simple venues in which most of the testimonies were heard during the course of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Two large, old tables – each with a chair – face one another on opposite ends of the playing space. Beneath Klytemnestra’s testimony table is a large bundle wrapped in black plastic. Upon each table is a microphone on a stand. Between these two tables is a low platform which demarcates the area in which the past / memory will be re-enacted. Centre of this platform is a grave filled with the red sand of Africa. Beside it lies an old pickaxe. Neither the grave nor murder weapon can be seen when the audience enters – as the platform is initially covered with a large industrial sheet of black plastic.
Along the back of the playing area, upstage and facing the audience, are seven empty, austere-looking chairs, upon which the CHORUS of WOMEN – who will come to hear the testimonies – will sit. The audience is seated in front of and around the performance area, as if incorporated into the testimonies. They are the community that provides the context to this event. Seated amongst audience members are the seven CHORUS members, as well as KLYTEMNESTRA and ELEKTRA.
prologue
As the audience wait for the play to begin, an elderly Xhosa woman emerges from the audience, and moves in silence into the performance area. She is dressed with the modesty characteristic of rural women from the Transkei. She has clay on her face and a blanket about her shoulders. She walks over the platform and considers the space. Holding a corner of the plastic sheet which covers the platform – she gently begins to gather it towards her. In the silence, the plastic drags away to reveal a richly-toned, earthen floor. The performance space, now fully visible, has a bleak beauty. In the centre of this earthen floor is the grave. The woman seats herself beside the mound of red soil, picks up her traditional calabash bow and begins the ancient singular sound of the UHADI (Calabash Bow). She sings softly in Xhosa:
Ho laphalal’igazi.
[BLOOD HAS BEEN SPILT HERE.]
One by one, the other WOMEN of the CHORUS rise gently from the audience, and move towards the stage, joining the song. All are dressed simply, with blankets around their shoulders. The last member of the CHORUS is a man in a hat and old suit. They take their places on the chairs upstage and continue singing. KLYTEMNESTRA – a white woman in middle age – rises from the audience, crosses the playing space and takes her place at one of the wooden tables. She is here to testify. ELEKTRA – a young, black woman – follows, and sits at the opposite table. Perpetrator and victim face one another at last. The CHORUS concludes its song. in silence, the UHADI (Calabash Bow) is passed quietly down the line of CHORUS members, and laid on the ground. The silence ensues – lasting almost a minute. Everyone waits without emotion or movement. Finally, KLYTEMNESTRA pulls the live microphone towards her. An ominous sound fills the room, as it scrapes along the wooden table. The neon lights above the tables and CHORUS flicker on. The Hearings have begun.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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