P3 African Season 2023

The CTDPS Presents the P3 African Season 2023:

The 3rd Year Acting stream’s African Season features scenes from selected African plays. This year’s scenes are taken from Pieter-Dirk Uys’ The Merry Wives of Zuma and a compilation of selected plays by Lwanda Sindaphi entitled S.K.I.E.S.

The Merry Wives of Zuma

Written by Pieter-Dirk Uys

Directed and facilitated by Ntomboxolo Makhutshi

“With a pending municipal election in Zuma, formerly known as Verwoerdville. Mayor Gedley, known as Dr. Dr. Dr. Gedley expects to be re-elected for thefourth time.

With his eyes on two more wives, both married to other men- his lawyer Basil Rosenberg and his accountant Mohatma Patel. Fanella Rosenberg and Indira Patel meet the challenge of Dr. Gedley’s passionate onslaught with humour and style.” -Pieter-Dirk Uys

2012 May have come with major shifts in the political realm of South Africa. In the process Juju’s words echo through the corridors of new generational protests, which shifts the narrative. Politics become more personal as the economy of the country impacts the education system. In Julius Malema’s words “the youth took it into their strides, leading movements such as #FEESMUSTFALL, #RHODESMUSTFALL and #SHACKVILLE”.

It is the Youth’s time. The question is “How far are you willing to run the course of change whilst holding onto Ubuntu?”

S.K. I. E.S

A Series of Plays written and Directed by Lwanda Sindaphi

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY.

Unpacks and unravels the complicated relation between those who desire to transform the townships and those who cannot endure the realities of informal settlements. In the township of Delft, two black attorneys, a married couple, battle over a sexually violated child who is found burnt and lying tied with wire in an open field. The wife wants to leave the “concentration camps” called townships, but the husband refuses out of a commitment to his people’s economic transformation. His parents were brutally murdered by an Apartheid government; now, he is against the idea of sharing spaces with white communities. Without disregarding his feelings, she overtly confronts the husband to adjust his political belief for the sake of their security. As opposed to him, she sees both spaces as cauldrons of her miserable existence. This story excavates the underlying complexities of conflicting resources and feelings. It questions the importance of the concrete and the abstract in relation to humans, especially those who endure hostile experiences on a daily basis.

KUDU.

Set in the year 2030, the AmaXhosa Nation has taken over the Eastern Cape in an attempt to utilise the land for their own prosperity. Meanwhile three Khoi-Coloured descendants and their ageing cow are migrating to the Eastern Cape. The drama centres on their encounter with Intaba KaNdoda, a poverty-stricken community once ruled by the Khoi chief Ndoda. The Khoi-Coloured descendants, having heard stories of how chief Ndoda was killed in a land dispute, have come to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. They have arrived to take back the Land from the AmaXhosa.

I WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO SHARE THE MILK.

This play explores the notion of black and white kids sharing a mother whose identity is always viewed within a domesticated framework. The writer had a dream to weave a narrative where this shared black motherhood is removed from the edge of existence, and moved to a rather central position. This narrative aims to interrogate the possibilities of true reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa and also to dissect the residues of the past in a democratic country from the so-called Born-Frees perspective.

ESISELENI SENDINI (IN THE CELL OF SACRIFICE).

An old woman who is a traditional healer leaves her village to embark on a journey that leads her to the city. Her youngest son, a criminal, has committed a brutal murder. She believes, wholeheartedly, that the murder is a result of the unresolved past. She believes that the crime is systematic. The crime is a result of a hidden past brewing in the present. Esiseleni Sedini (In the Cell of Sacrifice) scrutinises and interrogates the past in post-colonial South Africa. This past is then linked to the malicious crimes committed by black sons.

SONG OF THE SOUL.

Interrogates religion within the framework of blackness.