Performed: National Arts Festival (2017) Rhodes University ‘Best of Fest’ programme, Cape Town Fringe (2017)
Photograpghed By: Kyle Prinsloo
Awards: Silver Ovation Award at NAF’17
Poster By: Ellen Heydenrych
‘BAYEPHI’ is a play about a young girl who commits herself to finding peace for her brother’s restless spirit. In this story, we meet a sheltered young girl, but soon we are captivated by a woman’s strength and resilience. The theatre production is set against three decades of South African history. It is a story of a young girl on the journey of remembering her beloved brother who disappeared after joining the armed struggle as a teen. She remembers the past in order to live in the present. It is a story about the loss of a loved one, the desperation that comes with keeping their memory alive and the journey of finding peace.
Mwenda Gitonga
Nandipha Silhali
Eretha Micayla Fillis
Nompumelelo Khubeka
Siya Javu
WINNER of the 2016 Most Promising Director Award Thembela Madliki returned to the National Arts Festival with a serious, urgent and hauntingly chilling message to convey from the past to the present through her production Bayephi! Bayephi!, which translates to “where have they gone” follows the journey of Buntu and his baby sister Siphokazi’s roles in the history of South Africa. Buntu is one of the soldiers who embarked on the SS Mendi to fight for honour as South Africans, and survived to join Mkhonto weSizwe. Siphokazi, on the other hand, looks up to and reveres her brother, looking to “fill his boots” – which are represented by a giant pair of boots. Madliki perfectly opened a portal between the past and the present using a cinematically appealing earthen set of dirt and boxes with a pair of old boots.
Lebogang Tlou Talk of the Town