From 26 June till 28 June 2008 during the National Arts Festival Grahamstown the production of CISSIE by The Baxter Theatre and Nadia Davids is being performed on stage.
Cissie Gool was born in Cape Town in 1897, the daughter of the prominent political figure,
Dr Abdullah Abdurahman.
As a young person, she joined the Socialist Party, but in 1936 she founded the National Liberation
League and became its first president. From 1938 to 1951, Gool represented District Six on the
Cape Town City Council. For several years she was the only woman serving on the City Council and
in 1949, she was elected chairperson of the City Council’s health Committee. During the 1940s, Gool
became the president of the Non-European Front and took part in a passive resistance campaign.
She was also active in the Franchise Action Council, the predecessor of the South African Coloured
People’s Organisation.
Gool was arrested and charged on many occasions for her convictions, but this did not deter her
from her political activities.
In 1962, Gool received an LLB degree from the University of Cape Town and was admitted as an
advocate to the Supreme Court.
To this day, the name Cissie Gool remains synonymous with the history of the struggle of the
mother city.
Born at the end of the 19th century, Cissie Gool’s life reads as a
profile in courage; she defied the limits placed on her by society,
becoming one
of the most outspoken critics of apartheid, colonialism
and patriarchy of her generation. Nadia Davids’ play evokes this
extraordinary woman’s life, using Cissie’s story as way to think
through the struggle for memory and history in South Africa.
Through monologue, shadow and poetry the lost world of Cissie’s
home, District Six, is recreated and with it, the terrible poignancy of
today’s empty landscape.
Nadia Davids is a multiple award-winning South African playwright and scholar. Her work has been produced, published and studied in Africa, Europe and North America. Her work is intimately concerned and connected with re-imagining the aesthetic and political possibilities of the post-apartheid South African landscape. She has written five theatrical works; including At Her Feet, which has been a school and university set-work in South Africa and North America since 2004. She wrote a weekly column between 2003-2004 for a major South African newspaper, The Argus, and continues to publish opinion pieces and short stories in a variety of South African and North American magazines, newspapers and literary publications. She recently completed her PhD in Theatre at the University of Cape Town, tracing the performative connections between archive, exile, memory and loss through the experience of forced removals under apartheid in District Six. She has received two A.W.Mellon Fellowships for her research and has been made a visiting scholar at U.C.Berkeley and New York University. Nadia Davids collaborates with Mannie Manim (Baxter Theatre, Cape Town) and Quanitas Adams.
CAST
Rehane Abrahams as Cissie Gool and Sara
Quanita Adams as Christine and others
Vaneshran Arumugam as Yunus and others
Charlton George as Michele and others
Thembi Mtshali-Jones as Belakazi and others
Chan Marti as Rosie and others
Bo Petersen as Betty and others
Andre Samuels as Zak and others
Andre Weideman as Sam and others
CREW
Assistant Director: Caroline Calburn
Set Design Craig Leo
Lighting design Patrick Curtis
Sound Design Warrick Sony
Video Artist John Gutierrez
Stage Manager Michael Inglis
ASM Toni Andrews
Cissie Gool
An Apartheid sign at District Six Cape Town
www.baxter.co.za
www.nadiadavids.com
Venue: Graeme College, Cape Town
Performance Times:
Thursday, 26 June @ 19h00
Friday, 27 June @ 14h00 + 19h00
Saturday, 28 June @ 14h00 + 19h00
Flyer Cissie
Innovative cultural activities and initiatives of individuals and organisations in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are initiated and supported by the Prince Claus Fund. These creative processes lead to artistic productions in the realm of theatre, music, visual arts, architecture, audio-visual art and design.
