A tragedy brought vividly to life

FRIDAY, FEB. 3: Mother To Mother was only a short play but it packed a hefty emotional punch.

Thembi Mtshali-Jones’ performance as the mother of a murderer was spectacular — a convincing blend of humour, love, fear, anger, grief and desperation. The play, brought in by the Bermuda Festival of the Performing Arts, is based upon the murder of the straight-A American Fullbright student Amy Biehl who moved to Cape Town’s Gugulethu at the height of anti-apartheid unrest. Beihl’s International Relations major supported the abolition of apartheid which motivated her to travel to the country. She helped to register black voters for the country’s first ever all-race elections but less than a year into her trip she was brutally murdered by a gang of young black militants whose cause she had been fighting for.

Mother To Mother is a personal testimony by the loveable Mandisa who strives to make sense of her son’s actions and provide some kind of solace and explanation to the victim’s mother.

Mandisa was careful not to evade the reasons that drove her son to commit the crime — he was living in times of deep oppression ravaged by racial segregation and white
supremacy.

Her intimate description of what happened on that fateful day made for difficult listening — her language was poignant, evocative and, at times, poetic. She described the scene inside the “darkened stomach of Amy’s yellow Mazda” and the raging mob outside. Amy’s car was being pelted with rocks smashing the windscreen and showering her with glass. “Red petals fell from her eyes down her cheeks and joined under her chin in solidarity,” she recalled.

The script, it has to be said, was brilliantly crafted, but Mtshali-Jones’ delivery was compelling and
convincing.

I was amazed to find out during the outreach programme the following day that she has no formal training as an actress — it’s seems she has a deep rooted understanding of human emotion and a natural ability on stage.

Although Mother To Mother was a one-woman show, we met a multitude of characters through Mtshali-Jones’ often humorous impersonations of the characters in the play. She took off Mandisa’s eldest son — the universal grumpy teenager, her uptight mistress and raging protestors and with it brought colour and soul.

The play included news announcements and video footage of the actual house that Mandisa lived in, images of the political unrest and even the gas station next to which Biehl was stabbed to death. It brought the story to life placing us right in the picture. Effective lighting also helped to intensify the experience.

This play demonstrates the great capacity we have to give forgive. Amy’s parents, Peter and Linda, attended the murder hearings in 1997 and the same year they started the Amy Biehl Foundation. The aim was to continue the work their daughter devoted herself to in South Africa and two of the men convicted of her murder now work for the foundation.

The play is based on a book of the same name written by Sindiwe Magona, an author who lived close to Mandisa at the time of the murder. It was adapted for the theatre by Magona and director Janice Honeyman and it leapt seamlessly from page to stage.

Students at Bermuda’s schools revelled in picking the brains of actress Thembi Mtsali-Jones and director Janice Honeyman as part of an outreach programme organized by the Festival.

One student was fascinated how Thembi managed to memorise all the lines in the one-woman show asking how long it took her. “Right up to the day of the performance I was rehearsing,” she revealed.

“A friend of mine saw me and said to me one day “I saw you in the street talking to yourself in the street and I was worried. I was learning my lines all the time.”

Thembi shared a straight up story of what it is like to be an actress. “It’s not about glamour, that is just what other people add to it.” She went on to describe  the long hours and incredibly hard work involved but said that if you are passionate about it then it is all worthwhile.

As a word of encouragement to those aspiring to get in to the arts, Thembi said that there were very few avenues for her to learn her craft when she was growing up in South Africa and that she has no formal training.

There were no art or drama schools in those days but her passion and determination led her to find positions in various plays and musicals.