Fueling conversation around the female body
The stories of three figures come to life at the National Arts Festival in a play about female suffering
WITH the country reeling from the spike in violent deaths of women in the past few months, Womb of Fire further fuels the conversation around the female body as a site of disruption – undoing the myths around women, their place in society and their safety.
On a dimly lit stage at the Rhodes Theatre, the stories of three women in history come to life through the body of Rehane Abrahams. The suffering of Draupadi, Zara and Catrijn takes centre stage and pulls audience members to re-evaluate their own relationship to women, their bodies and sense of autonomy.
The play explores the lives and politics surrounding Draupadi, from the Indian epic, Mahabharata, Catrijn the first recorded female convict slave banished to the then Dutch-occupied Cape of Good Hope and Zara, a Khoikhoi woman born in the Cape and employed as a servant from a young age.
Abrahams, who plays all three women, takes the audience into the humiliation of Draupadi in front of the courts of the time – that was only narrowly minimised by divine intervention, the heartbreak that Catrjin goes through that leads her to being raped, and subsequently committing murder and being banished, and the tribulations of Zara, who was never really able to be her own person.
Abrahams said the play was about “the female body disrupting the status quo. Where the characters challenge the laws of the land with their own bodies”.
“Draupadi is the overarching myth. We took it because it references other women’s struggles and how Draupadi is a feminist icon in India,” said Abrahams. She said that Sara Mytchett, the play director, had in mind Anene Booysen, who was raped and murdered.
It is a deeply moving exploration of three women that presents them not only as victims, but sheds light into who they were beneath their vulnerability. The women are presented as strong-willed, loving, fearless and having a sense of humour to match. The use of props is limited, with an almost empty stage. Besides Abrahams’s physical strength and agility displayed each time she uses a pole – it serves the purpose of being one of the main tools of travelling between situations and of illustrating specific moments in the play.
Lukhanyiso Skosana provides haunting vocals that work to establish the play’s sonic scape. Womb of Fire is conceptualised by Abrahams and Mytchett through The Mothertongue Project that provides a platform to women artists, writers, performers and academics to provide a space for women to be heard, but also to make use of their art to champion social transformation where the rights of women and young people are concerned.
A visibly emotional Abrahams said the play’s opening performance was dedicated to the memory of 14-year-old Ocean View girl Camron Britz, who was found raped and murdered this week. Camron had a month before her death experienced nightmares in which she was murdered, but told family and friends in several letters that she could not see the perpetrators in the dream.
“I work with young girls in Ocean View and one of the young girls I teach, she’s 13, I heard her cousin was gang-raped and murdered. So we wanted to dedicate this to her. What can we do? What can we do more? I’m hoping the audiences feel this during the play,” Abrahams said.
She said that one of their inspirations was Manipuri women.
“One of the first inspirations is when Sara and I were in a conference in Manipur, India, and the Manipuri women protested. A woman had been raped and shot in the vagina by the Indian government. As a response, the village women went to the army barracks and took off their clothes in protest. We realised the situation in South Africa as well.”
She said that she hoped that the audience would walk away and start a conversation around re-looking at masculinity after experiencing the play.
“What I’m identifying more and more is that there are languages of power and strength and weakness that we must somehow massage out of our masculinity. We have to develop a nurturing masculinity,” Abrahams said.