A cry into the wind: four girls, four different experiences
A Howl In Makhanda
GENRE: Theatre DURATION: 1hr 5mins LANGUAGE: English AGES: 14+ AVAILABLE FROM: 30 June
With everything going on in the world — and right on our doorstep — from the recent Black Lives Matter movement protests ignited by George Floyd’s murder by a police officer in the US to the various concerns and allegations of racism in former model C schools in our city and across the country, A Howl in Makhanda
feels like a poignant and artistic step in the right direction.
It is amazing how art — whether it is theatre, dance, poetry or painting — sometimes has the power to bring the severity of world issues to life and make you feel their “realness” in the world better than any newspaper report can.
And that is exactly what A Howl In Makhanda does through its script and characters, its simple set design and repetitive movements, through the retelling of an all-too-familiar story for some and the telling of it from a different view for others.
Described as semi-autobiographical, A Howl in Makhanda follows the escapades of four South African teenage girls, two black and two white, at an elite all-girls boarding school in Makhanda.
Written and directed by Eastern Cape-born award-winning director, Qondiswa James, the script was shortlisted for the 2018 Casa Award for womanidentified playwrights.
The play, which is now available on the virtual National Arts Festival’s main programme, first premiered at the Magnet Theatre in Cape Town in January this year.
The hour-long piece stars Kim Adonis, Yamkela Ntendiyo, Megan Theron and Rosa-Karoo Loewe as the group of teenage friends.
Each embodying a character with specific fears, hopes and dreams, the performance of each actress shines a spotlight on different experiences of adolescence in this coming-of-age story.
Simplistically A Howl In Makhanda is about how the four Grade 11 girls (Karla, Bawdy, Xoli and Sam) are caught breaking the rules, and how the school deals with each of them differently.
But it is about so much more than that; it is about boys, parties, smoking and peer pressure, it’s about teenage pregnancy and eating disorders, about friendships and relationships, anxiety and depression.
The piece borrows words from artists such as Sylvia Plath, Kurt Cobain and Allen Ginsberg in monologue-type snippets which are used to express each of the girls’ experiences as they recount deeply personal events, thoughts and fears in between the chronological scenes of the play.
Ultimately A Howl In Makhanda is about how the girls, from starkly different backgrounds, navigate their place at the school — and in the world — in relation to others.
The piece highlights the concepts of “whiteness” and “blackness” by looking at how the girls are treated and how each of the girls react to what happens around them and what is said about them and others.
You might see some of yourself in Karla, who seems to not understand or accept white privilege, or in Bawdy, who is constantly frustrated by the ignorance of the “white girl” to black experiences and because of this A Howl In Makhanda is powerfully uncomfortable at times.
It forces us to look at ourselves and probe and prod our opinions. It shows us how problematic certain things really are and why. It puts the experiences of young black adolescent girls in the spotlight and shows us what micro-aggressions and implicit racist remarks feel like.
If anything, A Howl In Makhanda, sparks an important conversation — one that desperately deserves and needs to see the light of day, especially in our schools, among all teachers, parents and students.
It is amazing how art sometimes has the power to bring the severity of world issues to life and make you feel their “realness”
It is about boys, parties, smoking and peer pressure, it’s about teenage pregnancy and eating disorders ...