A new stage production called "The Cry of Winnie Mandela" has just opened up in South Africa. It's all about the hard times that Black women went through when their husbands were away for years fighting against apartheid. These women had to hold down the fort at home while their men were either in exile, locked up, or working far away.
The play is based on a book of the same name written by Njabulo Ndebele. It explores topics such as loneliness, partners' cheating, and betrayal. The main focus of the story is Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who was married to Nelson Mandela. She was a major figure in the fight for freedom, especially when Mandela and other leaders were in prison for decades.
The government treated Winnie really badly back then. They even kicked her out of her house in Soweto and made her move to a tiny town called Brandfort, which she'd never been to before. It was almost 220 miles away from everything she knew.
But things didn't get much easier for Winnie even after Mandela finally got out of prison in 1990. People accused her of some seriously bad stuff, like kidnapping and killing folks she thought were snitches for the police during apartheid. There were also rumors going around that she hadn't been faithful to Mandela during all those years he was locked up.
Because of all that drama, Winnie and Mandela ended up getting divorced. Even the African National Congress, their political party, started to distance itself from her. Ndebele wanted to write about Winnie's story so that younger generations in South Africa could understand what she went through after apartheid ended.
In the play, there's a big scene that shows Winnie going in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That was a group set up to look into all the human rights violations that happened under apartheid. Winnie flat-out denied the accusations of murder and kidnapping. She also refused to apologize to the families of the people she supposedly hurt.
Another important part of the play is how Winnie and Mandela's divorce played out in public. People found out all sorts of private details about their marriage, and there was gossip about Winnie having an affair.
The director, Momo Matsunyane, really wanted to show how tough it was for Black women who fought against apartheid. They had to take care of their families and raise their kids, often without their husbands around for a long time. Momo thinks that apartheid really messed up Black families in a terrible way.
In one scene, a woman tells her friends about how her husband divorced her when he came back home after being away for 14 years studying to be a doctor. He found out that she'd had a baby while he was gone, and the kid was already 4 years old by the time he got back.
The play is based on a book of the same name written by Njabulo Ndebele. It explores topics such as loneliness, partners' cheating, and betrayal. The main focus of the story is Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who was married to Nelson Mandela. She was a major figure in the fight for freedom, especially when Mandela and other leaders were in prison for decades.
The government treated Winnie really badly back then. They even kicked her out of her house in Soweto and made her move to a tiny town called Brandfort, which she'd never been to before. It was almost 220 miles away from everything she knew.
But things didn't get much easier for Winnie even after Mandela finally got out of prison in 1990. People accused her of some seriously bad stuff, like kidnapping and killing folks she thought were snitches for the police during apartheid. There were also rumors going around that she hadn't been faithful to Mandela during all those years he was locked up.
Because of all that drama, Winnie and Mandela ended up getting divorced. Even the African National Congress, their political party, started to distance itself from her. Ndebele wanted to write about Winnie's story so that younger generations in South Africa could understand what she went through after apartheid ended.
In the play, there's a big scene that shows Winnie going in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That was a group set up to look into all the human rights violations that happened under apartheid. Winnie flat-out denied the accusations of murder and kidnapping. She also refused to apologize to the families of the people she supposedly hurt.
Another important part of the play is how Winnie and Mandela's divorce played out in public. People found out all sorts of private details about their marriage, and there was gossip about Winnie having an affair.
The director, Momo Matsunyane, really wanted to show how tough it was for Black women who fought against apartheid. They had to take care of their families and raise their kids, often without their husbands around for a long time. Momo thinks that apartheid really messed up Black families in a terrible way.
In one scene, a woman tells her friends about how her husband divorced her when he came back home after being away for 14 years studying to be a doctor. He found out that she'd had a baby while he was gone, and the kid was already 4 years old by the time he got back.
