Full Description
Isidlamlilo / The Fire Eater is a one-woman play inspired by the true story of a woman who served as a political assassin in the build-up to South Africa's first democratic elections. Zenzile Maseko, the protagonist, is a 60-year-old grandmother living in a women's hostel in Durban. Falsely declared dead by the Department of Home Affairs, she finds herself cast into a Kafkaesque nightmare that forces her to confront her past.
Flown in on the wings of the Impundulu (the lightning bird), in Zulu folklore a shapeshifting bird associated with witchcraft and the harbinger of storms and death, Zenzile's story weaves a magical and terrifying tapestry. She draws on myth, religious symbolism and traditional beliefs as she shares the realities - at times brutal, at times forgiving - of survival in South Africa. Her story touches on what it means to live through political violence, the transition to democracy, the brutality of inequality, health epidemics like HIV/AIDS, patriarchy, and the apathetic bureaucracy of government departments.
Ultimately, Isidlamlilo / The Fire Eater offers a critical and unflinching look at the eddying cycles of violence and revenge that play out across generations. Yet it is most of all a story about regeneration and redemption that speaks to both the country's haunted past and its present-day complexities.
Written with pathos and empathy, this playscript will appeal to teachers, high school learners, and tertiary students in theatre, drama and English studies.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Kira Erwin
Notes on script and staging
Images from production
Isidlamlilo / The Fire Eater: Playscript
Scene 1: Conversations with Nkulunkulu
Scene 2: Home Affairs showdown (part 1)
Scene 3: Ipharadesi lost
Scene 4: Impundulu strikes
Scene 5: The scar
Scene 6: Zenzile's first revenge
Scene 7: Exile
Scene 8: The rise of Impundulu
Scene 9: Home Affairs showdown (part 2)
Scene 10: Zenzile reborn
Scene 11: The fall of Impundulu
Scene 12: Resurrection
Scene 13: The cleansing
Scene 14: Burial prayer
Scene 15: Zenzile's revelations! Home Affairs showdown (part 3)
Scene 16: Peace
Afterword: Q&A with Neil Coppen and Mpume Mthombeni, by Dylan McGarry
