User:N.monchoo/sandbox

History
The play is set in the 1950’s and follows the life of a black family living in South Africa during the Apartheid. The characters are as follows;


 * Mingus “The American”
 * Mingus’s lover, Princess
 * Lulu the school child
 * The colored man
 * Jakes, the writer
 * Fahfee, the numbers cruncher

This play talks about how they all come together at Mama’s house (Mamariti) in Sophiatown, or as they would call it, Sof’town. One day, a Jewish woman named Ruth, appears on their doorstep in response to an ad in the paper for a house mate. Based on a true prank in which Lewis Nkosi and Nat Nakasa advertised in Drum magazine for a Jewish girl to come and stay with them in Sophiatown, the play, centred in the house of Mamariti and her shebeen, embeds questions about race and identity, the relationship of music and politics, and between writing fiction and politics. Shebeens were political spaces, a boardroom of sorts where meetings and protests were planned and politics discussed.

Structure
The Johannesburg suburb of Sophiatown was established in 1900 and since its earliest days it was a multi-cultural melting pot of families with different racial and cultural backgrounds. Sophiatown was a legendary black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid, rebuilt under the name of Triomf, and in 2006 officially returned to its original name.

Performances
Sophiatown was first performed at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg on 18 February 1986, a Junction Avenue Theatre Company production directed by Malcolm Purkey, with sets designed by Sarah Roberts and William Kentridge and poster by Kentridge, starring Ramolao Makhene, Arthur Molepo, Megan Kruskal and Minky Schlesinger. The play quickly transferred to the Grahamstown Festival and went on to a phenomenally successful run over the next number of years, winning numerous awards and touring internationally. Doreen Mazibuko also joined the production, as well as Gladys Mothlale and Madidi Maphoto.