A few seats available next week for the three public
performances of the new production The
Last Country.
Durban theatre-makers Mpume Mthombeni and Neil Coppen (part
of the Empatheatre team responsible for UlWEMBU,
which looked at street-level drug addiction in the city of Durban) have created
an immersive 60-minute theatrical production which incorporates over 30 oral
histories collected as part of a larger research and advocacy project titled
Migration and the Inclusive City.
Through focusing on the everyday experiences of migrant
women in the city of Durban, the project aims to develop a participatory
city-led policy framework around migration, and it sets out to challenge
problematic stereotypes around migration in the city.
The theatre production will see top KZN actresses Mpume
Mthombeni, Philisiwe Twijnstra, Nompilo Maphumulo and Zintle Bobi bringing the
stories of women hailing from the DRC, Zimbabwe, Somalia and KZN to life.
Coppen sees the new theatrical collaboration with the UFC as
an extension of the Invisible lives
series of plays, which began with ULWEMBU
and formed similar pro-active partnerships with academic institutions,
faith-bodies like the Denis Hurley Centre (DHC), police, civil society,
city-officials etc.
“With these sorts of documentary/research based theatre
projects,” he says, “we get to employ theatre as powerful story–telling tool
and instrument of empathy. From our last project ULWEMBU, we learnt how impactful such a medium can be in
articulating the struggles faced by many, while at the same stimulating and
encouraging pro-active responses and solutions from participating audiences and
stakeholders”.
For Mthombeni, the theatre component of this project has the
ability to provide these incredible women with a platform for their struggles
and concerns to be heard: “It has been an incredibly humbling process working
with these women and their stories over the last six months” says Mthombeni.
"With this play we are hoping as actresses and story-tellers to do justice
to them. It is only once we hear and provide access to these important stories,
that we are able as a community, to form some sort of effective response to
helping”.
This project is run through a partnership between the Urban
Futures Centre at the Durban University of Technology, the Democracy
Development Program, and the African Solidarity Network, and it is funded by
the Cities Alliance. The play component is headed up by Mpume Mthombeni, and it
is produced by Empatheatre with the generous support of the DHC.
The three public performances of The Last Country take place on November 23 at the Courtyard Theatre
(19h00) and November 25 at the Denis Hurley Centre (10h00 and 12h00).
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