Durban - The city is in for a rare theatrical treat, when actress Mpume Mthombeni brings her electrifying one-woman tour-de-force “Isidlamlilo ‒ the Fire Eater” to the Sneddon from November 4 to 9.
Isidlamlilo is a collaboration between Mthombeni, who plays Agatha on e.tv’s Durban Gen, and award-winning theatre-maker Neil Coppen, with set-design by Greg King, lighting by Tina le Roux and sound-design by Tristan Horton.
The play premiered at this year’s National Arts Festival to rave reviews and standing ovations, with critic Steve Kretzeman writing: “Woven together from true stories and testimonials, with a near flawless presentation and delivery, Isidlamlilo expands our horizons so often cramped by fears real and imagined, and imparts some of the courage the dispossessed have to daily gather to continue to live.
“This is fantastic theatre.”
Mthombeni from uMlazi is an award-winning actor with roles in theatre, radio, film and TV.
She drew international acclaim for her performance in Tin Bucket Drum which toured New York in 2012.
Theatre credits include Animal Farm, Soil & Ash, NewFoundLand, Ulwembu, The Last Country and Lalela uLwandle.
Over 80 minutes, Mthombeni, through a frank, comic and captivating storytelling, relays the death-defying life story of Zenzile Maseko.
Maseko, a 60-something grandmother, rents a cramped room in a Durban women’s hostel and is haunted by her past working as an IFP assassin (fire-eater) in the build-up to the 1994 elections.
When Home Affairs mistakenly declares her dead and is unable to reverse the error on its system, she finds herself cast into the middle of a Kafkaesque nightmare, driven to desperate measures to prove she is still alive and made, in the process, to reawaken parts of her identity and past that she has spent much of her adult life trying to suppress.
Maseko’s story seamlessly propels us back and forth through time, traversing the shifting landscapes of KwaZulu-Natal, while charting critical events in the province’s post-1994 history.
While the story offers a critical look at the eddying cycles of violence and revenge that play out across generations, it is most of all a story about redemption, regeneration and reinvention.
The script is written by Coppen and Mthombeni, and is based on a range of testimonials shared with them.
They have woven in elements of Zulu folklore, biblical mythology, magical-realism to make an unforgettable theatrical experience that speaks to the country’s haunted past and present-day complexities.
Isidlamlilo takes place on November 4, 5 and 8 at 7pm, and November 6 at 2.30pm.
There is a special schools performance on November 9 at 11am.
There is an age restriction of 13+.
Tickets are R130 through Computicket.or call 0861 915 800.
For schools and community theatre bookings contact Margie at margie@thinktheatre.co.za or on 083 251 9412.
The Independent on Saturday
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