Luvuyo Kakaza
THEATRE
The toll of apartheid on South Africa’s domestic workers has been well documented in literature, in television documentaries and in fiction film. These days, though, it’s rare to find a stage interpretation of the lives of household “servants”. But one is currently playing that could very well bring some guilty “madams” close to tears.
Thembi Mtshali’s autobiographical one- hander, A Woman in Waiting, did exactly that for its audience on its opening night.
In A Woman in Waiting, Mtshali steps into the shoes she and her mother wore as domestic workers – and it’s a shameful journey she takes us on. Mtshali transports her audience back to her childhood in rural KwaZulu-Natal, where she grew up without her mother who worked in the big city of Durban for a white family.
Through poetic words and gripping songs Mtshali details her feelings as a young girl, her longing for her mother and her lack of understanding of why her mother had to be away from home for so long.
She recalls lonely Christmas days, and gifts her mother sent her from afar – like shoes that would not fit. In one of the monologues Mtshali explains, sadly, to her mother how she has grown, now needing new shoes that fit to show off to her friends.
Later in the narrative Mtshali also migrates to the city, where the mystery of her mother’s long absence is explained in a series of humiliating and hurtful incidences. In one, for example, the mother gets into some serious trouble for allowing her daughter to use the master’s toilet. And for the first time the character, autobiographically named Thembi, witnesses her mother’s fear of the people who rule her life.
Eventually, Thembi herself becomes a young mother, and repeats the pattern she grew up with – leaving her own child to be cared for by others.
The sketches that involve Mtshali portraying herself as an innocent girl growing up amid township life are charming and nave.
Later we meet Thembi the acclaimed performer, whose singing talent led her to perform in the stage production Ipi Tombi that toured extensively abroad in the 1970s.
The dramatic turn-about that happened in Thembi’s life is, however, entirely unexplained. We never get to discover what happens between the phases of her life as a domestic worker and that of a performer. This is the unexplained mystery in the text.
But it is common knowledge that life has not been easy for South African women who’ve chosen careers in the entertainment industries, and so, against all odds, Mtshali rose above what was expected of her to become an international performer.
Apart from her local and international appearances, she was also presented the best actress award for A Woman in Waiting at the Carthage Festival in Tunisia last year.
This hour-long production is a collaborative work that was conceived by Mtshali and directed by Yael Farber who, some years back, had success with her production of the controversial play Shopping and Fucking.
The programme notes say the piece was inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings and that is how the artists have arrived at the production’s title.
The story in fact portrays the plight of women waiting at the TRC hearings. Apart from this one reference the issue of the TRC goes unraised, giving preference to anecdotes of Mtshali’s personal life.
A Woman in Waiting is on at the Barney Simon Theatre at the Market Theatre Complex until July 1
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