AS THEY EMERGE on stage, shrinking under the scary weight of the presence of a military apartheid helicopter, Sdudla (Ziaphora Dakile), Mampopo (Kitty Moepang) and Mambhele (Barileng Malebye) open all the wounds that being a woman in a racist regime manifest. They talk quick and loose among themselves, and the bravado runs strong and thick, but cast them against the fabric of the mid-1980s in South Africa and they are deeply vulnerable. You Strike A Woman, You Strike A Rock is easily South Africa’s keynote piece of apartheid theatre, and this creative team does the work proud. It’s performing at the Lesedi Theatre in Braamfontein until 9 March 2025.
And if you’ve lived through the brutality and terror of an ideology in transition, you may consider it peculiar to think that a work of the magnitude and ferocity of Strike is today considered a period piece, but more’s the greatness of the work, now more than two generations old, to show young South Africans the meaning of what we fought for. Set in the mid-1980s, it contains rich and deep veins of history that reach to the Women’s March on the Union Buildings of Pretoria 1956 to protest ridiculous pass rules and the ignominious cruelty beset upon the heads of black South Africans. Because they were black South Africans.
But in surviving the test of time and morphing into a slice of history, the work loses none of its relevance. We’re living in a world where forced removals and desperate financial strife is par for the course. And the ordinary people are the ones that get pushed and pulled with the whims of the powers that be. Sdudla, Mampopo and Mambhele, the three informal street sellers of this play, selling chicken, oranges and vetkoek, and chicken, respectively, become as universal ciphers to what it means to be human in a world of bloody conflict, competition and contradiction. On a level, they are like Dickens’s peasants or Shakespeare’s ordinary folk, timeless vessels of their era.
And Dakile, Moepang and Malebye take hold of this great big shaggy and unapologetically feminist script which forces them into the body language and personas of many different characters, old and young, black and white, good and evil, with gusto and sophisticated empathy. You cry with the sense of hopelessness they confront, as you laugh at their crude street humour and the self-deprecation they use to stay on top of things. Men are sketched in as negative stereotypes – the squanderer, the drunkard, the abuser. Everything, from green flies to sexual harassment come under their experienced and collective gaze in this work, which vies between English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa, using local idioms and dialect-specific proverbs that you understand from within your intestines, even if not grammatically.
Everything – with the possible exception of the large wooden backdrop to the work, which feels too aesthetic – is impeccably put together, and the work, carried by its able team, makes you see these women as your mothers, your sisters, your people with their horrifying and guttural tales of being alive. Your stories, too.
Easily, Strike remains one of South Africa’s most important works, blending the values of poor theatre and protest theatre with those of physical theatre, confronting relevance unflinchingly and presenting everywoman in a way that will leave you feeling bruised from the inside out. It’s about the collective empathy of community, but doesn’t pull punches on the grit and filth of a society which is broken. It’s a must see. It became part of the drama curriculum for South African high schools a few years ago, but it should be mandatory viewing for anyone who thinks they know what it is to be human in this world.
You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock: Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’Imbokotho was written in 1985 by Phyllis Klotz in collaboration with the original cast, Thobeka Maqhutyana, Nomvula Qosha and Poppsy Tsira. Directed by Rorisang Motuba in collaboration with Maqhutyana, Qosha and Tsira, it is performed by Ziaphora Dakile, Barileng Malebye and Keitumetse ‘Kitty’ Moepang. Featuring creative input by Anna Ledwaba (set and props); Caroline Mokwena (costumes); Jeff Kubheka (lighting); and Ofentse Diseko, it is on stage at the Lesedi Theatre, Joburg Theatre complex in Braamfontein, until 9 March 2025.