The production is directed by Khutjo Green (who is also cast member) and co-written by Bobby Rodwell. According to Rodwell, Katanga, January 17 attempts to speak to the complex history and precariousness of life in the DRC as illustrated by the living descendants of Lumumba and Okito. “We are the children of war,” says Juliana Lumumba, daughter of Patrice Lumumba. “As my father ran in 1961, when his father, Joseph Okito was assassinated, so the children of the Congo are still running,” adds Joseph Okito’s grandson.
Katanga, January 17 is told in English, Ki-Swahili, Lingala and French. It features a proudly pan-African cast of South African and Congolese thespians. The South Africans in the cast are much-loved actors, Billy Langa, Khutjo Green and Thabo Malema. Billy recently featured in Poet-O-Type at the Market Theatre, while Khutjo Green was seen in Ka Lebitso La Moya at this year’s National Arts Festival.
Cameroonian actor Nji Alain, who is now living in South Africa, complete the pan-African cast.
Co-writer, Lesego Rampolokeng, is widely published across genres with well received poetry collections such as Horns for Hondo (1990), Talking Rain (1993), The Bavino Sermons (1999), Head on Fire (2012) as well as A Half Century Thing (2015), among others. Lesego has also penned three novels – Blackheart (2004), Whiteheart (2005) and Bird-Monk Seding (2018) – and stage plays such as Bantu Ghost: A Stream of (Black) Unconsciousness and Fanon’s Children, in addition to contributing to many other plays.
Bobby Rodwell is the Founder and Director of pioneering theatre company, mehlo-maya (eye-to-the-sun) through which she has produced several acclaimed theatre pieces based on personal narratives. Her work includes The Story I Am About to Tell based on the Bishop Desmond Tutu-led Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings where victims and perpetrators shared personal stories of atrocities under Apartheid. Other works include flipping the script (2007) and Theatre on Trains (2011), which both focused on gender-based violence in the home, public spaces and on trains. In Frontières (2021), Rodwell shone a light on personal stories of migration with African migrants taking centre stage in a well-received production which took place at the Market Theatre.
Don’t miss this dynamic cast as they weave together a narrative that, through movement and text, reveals a critical moment in the history of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and its significance to the African continent.
For enquiries, please contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at the Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@marketheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641 ext 224.
