ABSTRACT
A few years ago I had the chance to see the play Molora, written and directed by Yael Farber, at the Place des Arts complex in Montreal. Leaving the theater, elated by the virtuosity of the actors and the mesmerizing split-tone singing of a group of amaXhosa women, I turned my thoughts to the implications of the plot device Farber had chosen to frame the story of South Africa, of the nation's redemption from apartheid and the tense political situation during the early 1990s that could have easily degenerated into a bloodbath. To reflect the suffering produced by colonization and apartheid, and the elation brought by the long-awaited transition to a democratic society with the 1994 elections, Farber decided to base her play on Aeschylus's trilogy The Oresteia. 1 The original story is set in the aftermath of the Trojan war, as Electra, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, witnesses the grisly murder of her father at the hands of her own mother and, still shocked and grieving many years later, supports her brother Orestes' plan to avenge the parricide and murder their guilty mother. In Farber's play Elektra and Orestes represent the black population of South Africa and their plight during apartheid: Elektra was made a servant in her father's home, which had been usurped by Klytemnestra's lover, Ayesthus; Orestes was secretly raised by poor people in the African traditions and philosophy and he returns at the climactic moment of the play to fulfill his avenging role. Farber reworked the plot of the Greek tragedy, and created an Orestes who pleads with Elektra to spare their mother and to understand the importance of clemency and family ties. 2 As Klytemnestra represents the country's white population, the play's changed ending accounts for what has been termed as South Africa's miracle, the coming together of the population under Nelson Mandela's leadership, and the sense of union and forgiveness forged by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
