is one of the most successful South African plays of recent years. Written by Nadia Davids and directed and choreographed by Jay Pather, both artists and academics from the University of Cape Town, it has won numerous awards. Most recently Davids received the prestigious English Academy of Southern Africa Olive Schreiner Prize for Drama for the published text.
Four figures – The Archaeologist, The Healer, The Dancer and The Student – move between bones and books, archives and madness, paintings and protest, as they struggle to reconcile the past with the now.
It struck me that this discovery – its evidence of terror and the complex response to it – was, in and of itself and a profound metaphor for our country. History, a deeply unresolved history, had literally emerged from the earth and demanded a present-day conversation – and the conversation that came of it was a struggle between capital, memory, hurt, history, the official, the neglected, how we remember and whom we cherish. It was both of its own time and, painfully, of ours.