At the end of this month (July) the writer and director of Milked Voice,, Slindile Mthembu (2016 Standard Bank Ovation Award Winner) returns with her production Igama? that will be staged at Kopanong Arts Festival presented by the University of Pretoria (Lier Theatre) from the 23, 25, and 26 July 2019.
The production will later be staged during women’s month at Vavasati International Women’s Festival presented by South African State Theatre from 3- 4 August 2019.
Mthembu uses the theory of intersectionality (gender, race, and class) as a framework to explain the ways that system of power such as white supremacist beliefs, post-colonial implication, and the politics of language erode the experiences of women through a perpetual and systematic oppression.
In the play, Mthembu ruptures linearity by disrupting theatrical time and space to simultaneously highlight why black women’s lived experiences are not linear. Mthembu finds that the dominating theatrical discourse of beginning, middle and end narrative structures of playwriting is far too limiting to speak to contemporary issues experienced by women.
Thus, the play Igama? intersects five black women’s fragmented memories that move backward and forward. The play starts in the present, past, back to the present, into the future, then back to the present. This is done to epicenter themes such as; identity, sexual violence, abuse, child rape, loss of memory, marriage, culture, the politics of language and white supremacy.
Mthembu welcomes a South African theatre audience to experience a non-linearity form that unfolds why being a black woman in a post-colonial world is complex.
Tickets are available on:
