Performing Sindiwe Magona’s Mother to Mother: the transformative power of theatre adaptation

Abstract

This article analyses the transformation of Magona’s novel Mother to Mother
into a performance-adapted collaboration between Sindiwe Magona (writer),
Thembi Mtshali Jones (actor/singer), and Janice Honeyman (director) which
shortens the 224-page epistolary novel into an 80-minute, one-woman
performance that maintains the novel’s narrative complexity and historical/
political contexts. The essay recounts Magona’s presentation of the main
event in this drama – the 1993 murder of the American Fulbright scholar Amy
Biehl which ensued from the violence of the transition years that encapsulated
apartheid – and examines the underestimated role of black mothers; the
plight of black youth, who have grown up with minimal education, lack of
opportunity, and broken family structures; and the humanity that inspires the
imagined epistolary communication by the protagonist and the mother of Amy
Biehl. By capturing the pathos of this relationship and featuring poignant
scenarios that are suffused with the sounds and sights of the township of
Gugulethu, this transformative staging reveals the power of adaptation to
convey the essence of a work of fiction and showcases the educative and
healing potential of theatre.