The Good White shows the other side him, hidden and devious
By Nomfundo Nkosi
A commitment to storytelling and addressing the most stigmatic topics has been the goal for the showcase of the play The Good White. On the 25th of May we took time to go watch the theatrical piece that keeps its audience gazing, having fun throughout in this strictly English language play as a form of communication with only 5% Xhosa language used.
The play reminds the nation of one of the most influential hard news stories that shocked South Africa between the years 2017 and 2018. The Fees Must Fall saga raised rage among students keen to pursue their careers with limiting funding factors. Yet the plot twist that this theatrical play touches is based also on a lot of racial injustices and political issues affecting effective learning in institutions of higher learning. Acting alongside Vusi Kunene’s character are three other characters in the story. It is a very comedic play with fast paced lines, causing the crowd to burst in tears. Also with a serious clearer pace to teach effectively and make useful statements.
The origin of this play is a T-shirt statement in red that says a lot about white tears. The story begins with a university student who has childhood wounds due to her mother, who worked for her light skinned boss from overseas. This man also happens to be a lecturer at the same university, where she pursues her studies. The play takes place in four specific locations, during that jogging moments in the street, the lecturer’s house, the academy and the book launch venue for Amos’s book.
The candidate is close to the lecturer and his scheming wife.
The Good White man happens to have also raised her along with his children, yet she has always felt like an outcast due to her white sister practicing racism at school. The white man tries by all means to show the black South African young lady, that in life all the stigmas of racism are not part of his life. He believes in unity and humanity regardless the of the apartheid system.
The young black candidate suffers from a childhood trauma of witnessing her mother being shot in front her, in the corridors of the white man. It broke her, raising rage in other black students who are financially unequipped to access their own professional benefits.
The classes are disrupted by the rallies convened by the mass of students. The young lady recasts herself as a poet, yet lecturers conclude that she is an activist. The young lady had a mission to take each student’s complaint to a higher level to disrupt the board of the university. We find ourselves seeing the lecturer from Zimbabwe willing to also shut the dreams of these students. While each personal traits of each student board is overrated by the female lecturer who is racist. She is then recorded without her knowledge to expose her vengeful behaviour and molesting students, little did she know her life would flash before her eyes and as she adds to the statistics of the unemployed.
Her failure to bring her husband love and compassion results in her losing all her materialistic gains as her affair with Amos is exposed. The man how makes her life difficult as he does not show any care, let alone romance.