Robert Sobukwe’s love and revolution come to the Market

In director Palesa Mazamisa’s play, Lala Ngenxeba/Of Love and Revolution, three young actor-activists explore Robert Sobukwe’s life and legacy. 

Their playful but serious performances take pan-Africanism out of the textbooks and bring it to the stage in a sweeping work that displays his philosophy and love-centred approach to revolution. 

Sobukwe founded the Pan Africanist Congress, which broke away from the ANC for betraying a radical Africanist revolutionary path. He was imprisoned on Robben Island and banished to Kimberley – the apartheid state’s wrath with him was so searing that the “Sobukwe clause” of harsh imprisonment was written to ensure his ideas and ideals were locked in, too.

Using documentary photographs and historical sound archives, Mazamisa manages to direct the audience through the full span of Sobukwe’s life – Sharpeville, his imprisonment, banishment and death from cancer. 

The idea she foregrounds is Lala Ngenxeba, Sobukwe’s revolutionary sign-off. It means to lie on your wound, a theme that is constantly explored throughout the performance. 

“After one of the shows we had a long chat with PAC veterans, who explained that Sobukwe’s interpretation of Lala Ngenxeba was to never give up, no matter how painful the wound, keep lying on the wound and persevere,” says Mazamisa. Of course, this pain has resulted in decades of woundedness, and the play can also be interpreted as a healing journey – its sub-description is “…of love and revolution”. 

“Another point the veterans made was that Sobukwe had a deep love for black people, for the land, for family and for his wife. Even in the face of absolute abuse, brutality and violence, he chose love. Not necessarily turning the other cheek, but tough love, where one has to be resolute and assertive about what is right, but it comes from a place of love, and a place of correcting wrongs,” Mazamisa says. 

While Winnie Mandela is a household name, not so Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe, who was married to Robert. In the play she is a full-blown character, her every strength and vulnerability brilliantly performed by Pulane Rampoana. 

She hustles to visit her husband on Robben Island, cutting through apartheid’s petty bureaucrats. Veronica makes their home a home. She co-creates a political agenda with her husband.

For Mazamisa, this was an active directorial choice. 

“The wives of political figures are placed in the background, as though they were not legitimate activists in and of themselves. Veronica Sobukwe, as with Winnie Mandela and others, was equally harassed by the system, and showed courage and bravery through her activism, through her community work, through her support of (Robert) Sobukwe. The play imagines what that life meant for her.”  

Three actors, Rampoana with Zizana Peteni and Katlego “Kaygee” Letsholonyana, embody different characters. The role of Sobukwe flips between Zizana and Katlego.  

This is not a linear performance; part of the experience is to go with it and enjoy the youthful exuberance of a new generation of activists exploring the old through very different eyes. 

“The play is an opportunity for the Market Theatre to put a spotlight on the life and legacy of Sobukwe, and in a way that both grapples with that legacy and humanises this icon of the country's political struggle. From a programming point of view, the production is timed to both end our year of reflection on South Africa’s 30 years of democracy, as well as focus on the centenary of Sobukwe’s birth on December 5,” says Greg Homann, the theatre’s artistic director. DM

Lala Ngenxeba/Of Love and Revolution will run until December 8. The play is staged at the Market Theatre with the City of Johannesburg and Arts Alive. Tickets via Webtickets.