The Red on the Rainbow explores racism in small town

This human rights month, the South African State Theatre (SAST) in association with Diartskonageng will be showcasing The Red on the Rainbow, a play inspired by the murder of 16-yearold Matlhomola Moshoeu.

He was allegedly caught stealing sunflowers at a farm in Coligny, North West.

Written and directed by multiple award-winning theatre maker Monageng “Vice” Motshabi, the play explores the lives of black people living in small farming towns in South African.

It will be on until Sunday at the SAST.

The Red on the Rainbow follows the aftermath of the death of a young man on a maize farm at the hands of a farmer’s son and his friends.

It explores how time seems to remain frozen, picture-style, in an unending apartheid-ghostdance.

The play features Tshireletso Nkoane, Dambuza Nqumashe, Thato Malebye, and Thapelo Motsiko, Xolile Gama and musicians Sydney Mavundla and Volley Nchabeleng.

Motshabi says: “The general spirit of refusing to recognise the humanity of black people that was widely accepted by white people in 1960 [when the Sharpeville massacre – which Human Rights Day commemorates – took place] can still be seen in most small farming towns today at full blast.

“Staging this production during human rights month will hopefully remind us that the Sharpeville massacre did not end on Sharpeville day.

“In this county victims of human rights abuses still wear a black face. The rainbow is red with black blood.”

Motshabi wrote the play with support from the Literarische Colloquium of Berlin between 2019 and 2020.

It was adapted into a short film by Berlin’s Label Noir, and presented at the Maxim Gorky Theatre in 2020.

Last year, the play premiered at the Soweto Theatre as part of Joburg City’s Arts Alive International Arts Festival.

Motshabi is the Standard Bank Young Artist award-winner for Theatre 2017.

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