UbuntuTheater: Building a Human World in Yael Farber'sMolora

Abstract

AbstractYael Farber'sMolorablends themes from theOresteia, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Xhosa folk singing to produce an aspirational vision for an equitable postapartheid South Africa. This blending draws onubuntuethics—the living philosophy that holds that subjects become properly human only through their interaction with others and a commitment to making the world better—by combining these cultural forms and signs without hierarchically privileging any. Farber's revision of the plotline of theOresteiaemphasizes human community because the chorus of Xhosa women collectively introduce order and justice, as opposed to the imposition of order and justice by Athena in Aeschylus's play. The chorus protects Elektra and Orestes from violence and offers them—as well as Klytemnestra—the chance to return to a human community through forgiveness and the renunciation of violence. This is preciselyubuntu's aspiration.