PURPOSE. By Lwanda Sindaphi. Directed by Thando Doni. With Lwanda Sindaphi. Baxter.
SIBUYISELO DYWILI reviews
Anticipation was getting stronger and stronger last night as audiences arrived in droves at the Baxter Theatre for Lwanda Sindaphi’s new play, Purpose, directed by celebrated and award-winning director, Thando Doni. The duo teamed up to present this play to Cape Town’s theatre-goers as one of the two plays to be announced Finest of Zabalaza Festival in March this year.
As we got in the Baxter Studio, our nostrils were greeted by the pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, burn of a lucky stick, our eyes arrested by the beautiful set and lighting by Solomon Mashiane, ears pampered by the wonderful scoring of Mangaliso Ntekiso. Instantly, I began to drool almost impatiently for it to begin. But the theatre was packed, overflowing with audiences coming in excitedly, and so I learnt a bit of patience.
Immediately after the theatre-welcoming-announcement, the performer, Lwanda Sindaphi, emerged unto the stage with brimming confidence and poise, welcoming us into his world; his shack and a roundabout located in Delft where every day, he sits and waits and waits and waits… just to see this gorgeous girl whom he loves with all his heart that his knees shiver when it’s time to let her know. Sindaphi delivers a bold and humorous performance in this enthralling narrative. Having never seen him ‘act’ before, this was a very powerful and lasting impression of him.
Flashes of brilliance
The writing of Purpose is filled with flashes of brilliance stitched together with an assiduous use of words and deep comprehension of storytelling that stung the audience with much compassion. Undoubtedly, Sindaphi is a true renaissance-man and with his illustrious reputation as a rapper-poet before theatre making, this brave poetic text triumphs with much educational, entertaining and insightful ‘purpose.’
Purpose is a story about love and its tides, the dangers and complexities of ancestral-calling and the need for one to accept one’s callling. It doesn’t solve anything. The problems are there and the character deals with them, and we don’t know if by the end he wins or surrenders. It is open and invites one to make of it what they will. The playwright employs a variety of well expressed analogies and metaphors to communicate his confusion and exhaustion toward his ancestors that prove to be a constant obstacle between him and the girl he loves. The writing makes you salivate, but Sindaphi’s performance upstages everything, even the text itself.
Nothing short of extraordinaire
Thando Doni, known for his evoking and award-winning plays, is an attentive director. With absolute chutzpah, he guides the performer with shining knowledge and experience. Doni paints quite lucidly the whole township that is Delft without ever needing a brush and a canvas.
Perhaps this is the right time and moment to admit that Solomon Mashiane has been very hardworking man in 2025, and congratulate him on always delivering a strikingly alluring set design and lighting design. It is evident that he has been studying and practising for so long that this year he’s just burst with utter brilliance for every play he gets involved in. Since Zabalaza’s winning play of 2024, Themba Baleni’s Invisible Scars, Kitso Seti’s Four Fathers: Bananas for the Baboons, and Lauren Snyders’ 2025 Zabalaza winning ‘n Pandok se Liefde, Mashiane has been a designer of note, creating vivid and detailed worlds and lights that are nothing short of extraordinaire.
Support this play. Go out … with a friend and watch it … and donate through the Baxter if you really can’t make it. It is a play that taps deeply into the spiritual world after all, so supporting with tickets and attending in ‘spirit’ is almost an honor.
What: Purpose
Where and when: Baxter Theatre until 20 September 2025
Book: Webtickets
WS
