Photo: Mark Freeborough
Sister Breyani by well-known poet, performer and playwright Malika Ndlovu (co-founder of WEAVE, the Cape Town women writers’ collective, a collaborator with Mothertongue Project, and author of Womb to World: A Labour of Love and Born in Africa But), is a celebration of South African women about five sisters (a sturdy cast of Denise Newman, Mary Daniels, Lee-Ann van Rooi, Euodia Samson and Roxanne Blaise).
Breyani combines two genres; the road movie (they all get on, then they get lost, and eventually they get on each other’s nerves), and the family reunion (at first happily reunited they celebrate, then there are tête-à-têtes in their pyjamas, nostalgia gives way to pain, a family row ensues, and, naturally, one of them is expiring of cancer – the customary catalyst of this genus for reasserting family bonds).
It is a domestic, drama vérité, and at times one wonders, in the words of one of the characters, “Do we all really need to be dragged into it?” The script is lively, if familiar, and employs some evocative imagery, though many of its devices are literary rather than theatrical.
Lara Bye has done a stunning directorial job, seamlessly employing multimedia and presenting the plays deliberate ordinariness in novel and visually exciting ways.
If you enjoy movies such as The Family Stone and In Her Shoes, you should enjoy this South African derivative.
