Women of Owu – an adaptation by Nigerian playwright Femi Osofisan, of the classic play The Trojan Women – bursts on to the Baxter Flipside stage, from 27 to 30 October 2021.
Presented by UCT’s Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies (CTDPS), in collaboration with The Baxter Theatre, the short season of only five performances, is co-directed by Iman Isaacs and Mwenya Kabwe.
The production showcases 20 CTDPS final year acting students, comprising Abigail Avidon, Lisekho Bulabula, Sidne Barnett, Tayla-Rose Bisset, Nomakhosi Meveni, Caitlyn da Aparecida, Adan Fagan, Dean Goldblum, Mpumelelo Phanginxiwa, Nahum Hughes, Cwenga Koyana, Bianca Lakey, Oratile Ndimande, Daniel Newton, Lyle October, Stian Oosthuizen, Lernice Parker, Tim Stadler, James Stoffberg and Lisa Tredoux.
Musical direction is by Babalwa Zimbini Makwetu, costumes by Leigh Bishop, lighting design by Benever Arendse, set by Lungile Cindi and projection design by Nicola Pilkington.
Osofisan is an internationally respected Nigerian playwright, director, scholar, activist, novelist, poet, actor and songwriter. In 2016 he became the first African honoured by the International Association of Theatre Critics when he was awarded the prestigious Thalia Prize.
Dystopic African future
Women of Owu is set in the ancient city of Owu, which Osofisan describes (in his notes on the play’s genesis), as a model of prosperity and organisation. After a seven-year siege, the combined armies of two Yoruba kingdoms, along with Oyo refugees, recruited as mercenaries, entered Owu and sacked the city.
In the third year of the siege, the rains stopped, weakening the once formidable city and strengthening the Allied Forces camped on the other side of the city walls. When they entered the city in the seventh year, they destroyed Owu and reduced it to rubble. They set fire to the city and killed all the male inhabitants, capturing the women of Owu, as their spoils of war.
The play takes place a day after the sacking of the city. This rendition of the west African adaptation, set in a dystopic African future, is laden with echoes of a timeless lament and resonates with the current context and scourge of gender-based violence across South Africa. Through their rituals of protest, the Women of Owu lay bare the unspeakable trauma inflicted on them.
What: Women of Owu
Where and when: Baxter Flipside from 27 to 30 October 2021 at 6pm and a matinee on Saturday, 30 October 2021 at 2pm
Tickets: Webtickets
Photographs: Rob Keith
WS
