Umongikazi: The Nurse
Umongikazi: The Nurse is a play by Maishe Maponya (1951-2021).
Sometimes cited in isiZulu (Umongikazi) or in English (The Nurse) alone.
The original text
A highly politicized play about the racism and incompetence in hospitals and making a call for unionisation, it uses techniques of multiple roleplay, caricature, flashbacks and revolutionary songs to show the radicalization of a young nurse Nyamezo.
Published in Doing Plays for a Change: Five Works (Edited by Ian Steadman, 1995/2021), Four Plays (as Umongikazi/The Nurse,edited by Zakes Mda, 1996) and Black South African Women: An Anthology of Plays (as Umongikazi: The Nurse, edited by Kathy A. Perkins, 1999).
Performance history in South Africa
1983: First performed at the Market Theatre as Umongikazi by the Bahumutsi Players, directed by Maishe Maponya with Fumane Kokome, Maishe Maponya, Gcina Mhlope and Bennett Tloana.
1983: Toured Britain and Germany in the same year.
Sources
Theatre programme held by NELM: [Collection: MAPONYA, Maishe]: 2012. 332. 1. 5.
Pat Schwartz 1988. The Best of Company: The Story of Johannesburg's Market Theatre. Johannesburg: Ad Donker.
Andile Xaba. 2021. 'Collective memory and the construction of a historical narrative, analysis and interpretation of selected Soweto-based community plays (1984–1994)'. Unpublished PhD thesis.
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