Heart of Redness

Cape Town Opera and Magnet Theatre presented a new musical adaptation of Zakes Mda’s novel, Heart of Redness. It was performed by a multi-talented 15-member cast comprising of Magnet Theatre and UCT Drama School graduates and some of the Cape Town Opera’s youngest members. Mark Fleishman directed it with music by Neo Muyanga, movement direction by Jennie Reznek and designs by Craig Leo. Heart of Redness speaks of South African village life against the backdrop of a notorious episode from the country’s past.

Camugu, who left for America during apartheid, has returned to Johannesburg. Disillusioned by the problems of the new democracy, he travels to the remote Eastern Cape where, in the nineteenth century, a teenage prophetess named Nonqawuse commanded the Xhosa people to kill their cattle and burn their crops, promising that once they did so, the spirits of their ancestors would rise and drive the occupying English into the ocean. The production will be staged on the Fugard Main stage.