25 March 2023
Drama

Following the 700th anniversary of the death of the supreme Italian poet Dante Alighieri celebrated in 2021, the new play “Dante & Mashudu” is touring South Africa. The project, promoted by the Embassy of Italy in Pretoria, the Consulate General of Italy in Johannesburg, the Consulate of Italy in Cape Town, the Italian Cultural Institute in Pretoria and the Dante Alighieri Societies in South Africa, in collaboration with UJ Arts and Culture, was born from the idea of creating a theatrical show that acts as a cultural bridge between Italy and South Africa.  The performance in Durban is in association with UKZN's Centre for Creative Arts and the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.

Dante & Mashudu is a play that places Dante in the South African context. It works with the idea that dead poets must guide living poets through the afterlife on a journey of poetic reckoning. It is now Dante’s turn to guide a poet, as he was once guided by Virgil. Dante comes to meet Mashudu, a South African poet in her Dark Wood. He comes to take her through Inferno and Purgatory where she meets South African characters along the way including Jan Van Riebeeck and John Dube.

Driving the play is the notion that poets need to know where they come from in order to play their role as aids to how a nation understands itself. This means Mashudu has to witness the truth of her context both in terms of the narrative of South Africa as a country and her own personal morality. Mashudu, guided by Dante, reckons with her understanding of South Africa’s past such as with witnessing the punishment of Verwoerd, to reckoning with the country’s present including a domestic abuser.

Mashudu is also faced with the precariousness of her own morality when she meets an old friend in Purgatory. As the play continues, Dante becomes Mashudu’s friend showing that friendship can cross centuries and contexts for poets share their role as poets no matter the society to which they belong. Both Mashudu and Dante are connected by their unwavering commitment to their own moral imagination. Virgil, as comic relief, completes the picture as narrator, cementing the idea that the poets of the past are deeply connected to the poets of the present.

The show is at 7pm on Saturday 25th March only, and tickets are R100.  Online booking is through Computicket via https://tickets.computicket.com/event/dante_and_mashudu/7212389/7212393/1302 .  Customers can also book at any Checkers Store money market counter, or via the Computicket call centre 0861 915 800.