‘IT FOUND ME,” says actress and director Thoko Ntshinga about the Ndithungile Selani project which ends the Artscape Spring Drama Festival this month.
She had approached Artscape about working on a Xhosa production aimed at adults. She adapted and directed Amaza, which is based on a prescribed book, for their schools’ programme, but wanted something more.They ran a sort of feasibility study, with an evening performance of Amaza, and realised there is a market for Xhosa work, to be presented at Artscape.
The challenge was then to either write something new, find something old, or adapt an existing piece of writing for the Spring Drama Festival.
She was rifling through her Xhosa books at home and picked Ndithungile Selani (a phrase which loosely translates as “I have given you the information, do with it as you will”), a collection of short stories by DV Tom.
Specifically, her eye fell on Ukwenda, which is about the traditional journey of a newly-wed woman in the Xhosa culture.
When Ntshinga read Ukwenda she thought, “what does this mean to a modern woman because Tom talks about a modern woman?” Even though it was set in the rural area, what he was talking about is something that used to happen a lot and now it doesn’t happen so much.
“Rereading the story she was reminded of a childhood friend who had been kidnapped and married off against her will. Ntshinga’s friend went through a whole traditional process that was supposed to turn her into a good wife, though it was never something she or her family had wanted.
“There was no law then. She was taken away, it was not to be discussed,” Ntshinga remembers.
The concept of ukwenda struck a chord since her daughter had recently married and Ntshinga had wondered if she was going to go for a traditional wedding or a Western one.
“When you come to the traditional wedding and you look at the journey and even during the celebrations, what happens, who gets what, what is expected, all those things… My daughter is a very liberal woman so it was a question of ‘would she cope with these things that are supposed to be happening in the amaXhosa culture? How will she react or respond?’ “
Ntshinga was surprised when her daughter bought into the idea, up to a point: “She dressed up as umakhoti, went through the thing with the black doek and the blanket. She did it.
“But, what made me smile all the time was she told us: ‘I’m not here to be abused. I will do things that I can do, I will fit myself into this family’, but at the same time she told her mother-in-law: ‘I’m not here to be given jobs’.
“And now she is very close to her mother-in-law,” Ntshinga smiles.
The challenge for adapting the short story was to merge modernity and a fast- disappearing traditional way of life, pitting the concept of respect against exploitation in the name of culture: “So I don’t just put his story on the stage. Because we are in the now I needed to show that not everybody thinks it is right.”
For the play, Ntshinga created two families using six characters. The one family is applying a strict interpretation of ukwenda and the family over the road is watching them and pursing their lips: “In this one family the two sisters and their mother argue about what has happened at the other house. And the other house is presenting all these issues.”
Ntshinga finds it ironic that the play will be directed by Thando Doni, since the story is very much about a cultural concept that only women experience, even if it does affect the whole family. Still, she is curious to see how he interpreted the work.
• Ndithungile Selani will be presented as a staged reading, in Xhosa, on Thursday at 7.30pm and on Friday at 2pm and 6pm. Tickets are R40 to R90 from the door or Computicket.