14 Jun 2023

Dramatic Scholars and Luminous Art World Studios, in partnership with Showcase Theatre, will present a play that animates the historic lives of Africans, including El Negro, in an eccentric manner.

An African’s Memoirs, which is expected to regale audiences with African injustice accounts, will start at Molapo Crossing’s Showcase Theatre from 7pm of June 28 and end on July 1. 

 The play will be based on three historical accounts: The Herero and Namaqua genocide, Sarah Bartmann, a Khoikhoi woman who was exhibited as a freak show attraction in the 19^th century Europe and El Nigro, the ancient warrior that rests in Botswana.

“The play unfolds with Sarah Baartman’s story told through movement, where we will incorporate physical theatre, then tell El Negro’s story through a tale and finally move to the scene where we tell the story of the ethnic extermination of the Herero and the Nama people of Namibia,” playwright producer, Boikhutso Molefhi, said, describing the play as an attempt at reanimating African history through theatre. 

Molefhi said the play would defy all conventional theatre practices by incorporating art and music into a virtual museum-like setting.

The set up will include a museum characterised by hanging art pieces, aesthetic drapes and waiters for the audience walks around to marvel at the gallery, Molefhi said.

The producer said he worked as a waiter in art galleries while in Cape Town, a touch he wished to bring into his play. 

“I got to see how people engage with art and I was taking notes from that. 

I told myself this is exactly what we are going to do in the theatre,” he said.

Giving more details about the play, Molefhi said, “we are going to have the audience walk through the stage, walking through the art gallery that we have established, breaking forms of conventional theatre where you walk in and sit down.” 

He added that the audience gets to engage with the place.

Molefhi said he wished for his works to be used as academic references, citing Donald Molosi, whose productions were used as case studies in American universities.

Tickets for the play go for P150 and organisers have assured extra security and warmth as the cold creeps in. ends