The Cry of Winnie Mandela unravels the complicated lives of imaginary waiting women, whose circumstances resemble that of Winnie Mandela
By Nomfundo Nkosi
The opening show of the stage production The Cry of Winnie Mandela on February 27, 2025 at the Market Theatre, is solid proof that theatre pieces draw their crowd through audience engaging and being captivated. During the play the audiences moved with the motion of each storyline of women in waiting characters. The play allows for audiences to tap into various oppression mindsets and emotional scenarios, in order to relate to the character’s role and description according to their acting skills.
The story of the cry of The Cry of Winnie Mandela adapted from a novel by novelist, poet and
essay specialist Njabulo Ndebele is compiled as a summary of the book of the same name in the play.
The play uncovers facets of women through unraveling all the imaginary women, who can resemble Winnie Mandela, through their characters tapping into their trauma bondages caused by the apartheid system and their personal lives being in chaotic disharmony. Male figures known as heads of the house implicating their leadership roles in the struggle, leaving the pillars of their households (women) in disperse. The role play can allow an age gap to close between women of democracy with the historical (apartheid) facing elderly women who are part of the oppression statistics.
The play taps deeply into a spectrum for feminists and humanitarians. It also allows both genders to reflect on poor choices, action taken to destroy the dynamics of their relations. Some of the decisions taken by male migrant workers were purely to uplift their masculine image while unfortunately at the same time diminishing and devouring that of their female counterparts they left back home.
Striving in the depths of seeking liberation as womenin South African history has not only created disgraceful women. Yet it has createdwomen capable of leadership and supportive roles.
The play is clear and concise of all the emotional rollercoaster, the black women extremely experience with drastic changes. Their practices of forming a woman’s club or congregation forum to lift the veil of oppressive state and it has been led through a group effort. By cohesive planning and a broad dynamic of effective team player energy, to harvest their desires through allocation of serving equal rights as to the other gender.
These women share their endurance in conflicting situations and their rule ongoing is to crack the code to liberation, that bridges the emerging void of devastation, rage, rejection, abuse the deformation of character and loneliness.
It also dives into the insights of double standards for women in power. It also allows generations(audience) to relate to the injustices in display through the scrutiny of the sentencing of their husbands, the legacy of migratory labour system and while others create new beginnings in exile including family planning. Thus, leaving shame and disappointments to the women in waiting.
The show consists of six characters that allow audience to be takenback in real time to the apartheid regime period.
The play is staged in such a way that it is educative to the youth of today about why the country is sometimes gripped with broken families, while at the same time those who experienced this pain, both males and females are offered an opportunity to reflect on their own roles in this mess. The narrator who is a professor navigates his writing through the timeline of the 1980s with a setting that includes an old typewriter, old telephone, old music records and pieces of junk to represent the working station. He writes about Winnie Mandela using the Penelope descendant’s rule. They dive deeper into the mental, physical and spiritual struggles which enforce unexpected change through a magical tea pot. Each sharing their amendments to reconnect with their husbands.
The play consists of arepetition of the question to place Winnie Mandela character recognition as a characterworthy of admiration (love) or hate.
Also, the play unravels the negative traits she also encounters in her marital journey to Former President Nelson Mandela. But her predicament, according to the gist of the play, are not hers alone, as these were shared by several other women who found themselves in a situation whereby, they too waited for their husbands indefinitely.
The women’s problems range from dealing with stress, anxiety disorders to depression Some of the women who became politically active during that time, notably Winnie, were brutalized by the system, including being molested.
Due to the brutalities, they faced, their personal lives changed.
This play allows its audiences toexperience the transformation of their personal traits, leading in some cases to self-actualization to make their lives and that of their communities better.
This is a play that must be seen by both old and young as its runs for that second time at the Market Theatre in Newtown.