The Market Theatre has curated an undoubtably intriguing season of productions to
celebrate Women’s Month with I Am A Woman and Ruined. Every year in August, our country marks Women’s Month, where we pay tribute to the more than 20 000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956 in protest against the extension of Pass Laws to women. Women’s Month allows us as society to gauge how far we have come in transforming society, particularly the unequal power relations between women and men.
Nqobile Sipamla, Mzansi’s favorite actress returns to the Market Theatre to give a
performance of a lifetime in I Am A Woman which premiers Tuesday 19 July to
Sunday 14 August 2022. Sipamla dazzles as Mmabatho in I Am A Woman, a brand new one woman play by novelist Nthikeng Mohlele, set in contemporary and cosmopolitan Gauteng. The
piece is anchored around the grand themes of love and belonging, female identity
and feminist sentiments, about the place of women in a modern South Africa, about
tragedy and loss, and about the interplay between personal and societal tensions.
The central premise of the play is an existential examination of the hearts of humans;
what it means to love, to have a meaningful life and, how fate and chance can either
enrich or derail personal dreams and agency. Emotive, philosophical, humorous and
often deadpan; the piece is a mosaic of performance flowers waiting to bloom
Palesa Mazamisa who is widely considered as one of the finest directors working
today, celebrated by her peers for having a perceptive eye in creating captivating
characters. Mazamisa is an award-winning playwright, author, and director. Her play
Shoes & Coups received 7 nominations including Best New South African Script,
Best Director & Best Production, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor from the
prestigious national Naledi Theatre Awards. The play went on to win the Best New
South African Script and the Best Supporting Actor awards.
Novelist, playwright, entrepreneur and brand marketing and communications
professional, Nthikeng Mohlele, authored six critically acclaimed novels and two
short story collections. He dabbles in journalistic writing and literary criticism and, is
the winner of the University of Johannesburg Main Prize for South African Writing In
English for Pleasure, the K Sello Duiker Memorial Prize and was also long listed for
the Dublin International Prize.
Sipamla, an all-round Performer, Facilitator and Director of SirenzQ (Pty) Ltd.
Nqobile's debut was in the multi – award winning play The Suitcase in 2006 which
earned her the Naledi Theatre Award for Best New Comer/Breakthrough 2006. She
was also recently nominated at the South African Film & Television Awards ( Safta)
for her lead role as Thuli on the sitcom Abomzala. Sipamla will give audiences
transformative experience when you morph along with her on stage.
The second superb installation of the Women’s Month Celebration is the Tony Award
Winning production Ruined by Lynn Nottage from 5 August – 4 September 2022
which will have its South Africa premier under the directorship of Clive Mathibe. The
phenomenal ensemble includes film leading ladies and gents, Busi Lurayi, Shoki
Mmola, Fulu Mugovhani, and Samu Maseko, Molefe Monaisa, Edward Nkumishe,
Thapelo Sebogodi, Anele Situlweni and Vaughn Lucas.
Ruined involves the plight of a group of women in the civil war-torn Democratic
Republic of Congo. Set in Mama Nadi’s bar – a haven for miners, government
soldiers and rebel militia, where they come to forget the ruins of war, to drink and
dance with women and feed their desires. The play centres on the lives of the
women working in the bar and their resolve to survive despite the atrocities they
have experienced
Catch these unmissable and thought provoking productions at the Market Theatre
buy your tickets now!
