Abstract
This paper examines Molora, an adaptation of the Orestes story by South African playwright Yael Farber set in the context of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It considers the play’s engagement with restorative justice in relation to the exploration of different forms of justice by Aeschylus in his Oresteia. It also examines Farber’s play in light of the ideas of the influential Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal, noting how the relationship with the classical past has changed in the three decades between the publication of Boal’s Teatro del oprimido y otras poeticas politicas in 1974 and the premiere of Farber’s Molora in 2003.
Highlights
Tragédia Grega para o Novo Milênio: testemunho público e justiça restaurativa em molora de yael farber
This paper examines Molora, a modern adaptation of the Orestes story by the South African playwright Yael Farber set in the context of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission1
It considers the play’s engagement with restorative justice in relation to the exploration of different forms of justice by Aeschylus in his Oresteia. It examines Farber’s play in light of the ideas of the influential Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal, noting how the relationship with the classical past has changed in the three decades between the publication of Boal’s famous Teatro del oprimido y otras poéticas políticas in 1974 and the premiere of Farber’s Molora in 2003
Summary
Molora recreates many of the conditions of the TRC. The set design is a simple and austere room with two testimony tables at which Klytemnestra and Elektra take their seat. The chorus of the original production, composed of seven members of the Ngqoko Cultural Group, are seated in the audience at the beginning of the play (as are Klytemnestra and Elektra). Along with the other characters in the play except for Klytemnestra, often speaks in Xhosa, they usually shift into English for dramaturgical reasons (the play was composed with an international audience in mind). It was a founding principle of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that those who took the witness stand should tell their story in their first language. Suffice it to say that scene xix (rises), in which the cycle of violence is broken, belongs to the chorus, and attests to the role of the community in effecting the process of reconciliation and restoration
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