September 2019 | Ramolao Makhene Theatre

 

This piece is has been hailed as the new wave of protest theatre to emerge from a post democratic South Africa. It is a research-based production exposing the horrific mental health care “genocide” that became known as the Life Esidimeni Tragedy in 2015 in which thousands of patients were relocated from functioning mental healthcare facilities to unlicensed and corrupted NGO’s. They were transferred to these completely inadequate facilities on the backs of trucks, tied up with sheets and without their medical files accompanying them. 144 patients died of dehydration, starvation and exposure.  The practitioners, politicians and mental health MEC’s who orchestrated this operation have still not been held accountable.​

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directed: Sylvaine Strike

written and devised: director and cast

collaboration: Gina Shmukler and Phumlani Mndebele

set: Andrea van der Kuil

costumes: Andrea van der Kuil & students

starring: Market Theatre Laboratory First Year students (2019)