Litnet

Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues, presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV. In Fred Khumalo’s Ingoma kaTutu a praise singer pays homage to the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and chastises the South African government for corruption and ineffective leadership. Zamah Nkonyeni performs the monologue, directed by Mdu Kweyama. Watch the performance in isiZulu with English subtitles here.

Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues, presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV. Watch Gary Naidoo perform The fate of your soulmate, written by Paige Nick and directed by Rafiek Mammon. The monologue text is also available here.

Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues, presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV. Watch Tshegofatso Mabutla perform Matlakala, written by Jerry Mofokeng wa Makhetha and directed by Mahlatsi Mokgonyana.

Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues, presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV. Watch Motlatji Mjamba perform Country duty, written by Mike van Graan and directed by Chuma Sopotela.

"Sometimes first to fall
sometimes hang on through it all
Sometimes, somehow
they even make the final call"

"This is the end of the family
who once lived in the house.
And the end is otherwise quiet"

In Xolisa Ngubelanga’s Siwagawula siwarhuqa, a woman recounts how, as a school girl, she fell in love with a handsome gardener, Sakhumzi, and how the experience left her hands covered with thorns. Zikhona Jacobs performs the monologue, directed by Mfundo Zono. English subtitles. Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV.

Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV. Watch Buhle Ngaba’s performance of After tears, written by Buhle and directed by Amelda Brand.

"Soon I will be dead
It’s uncertain
When is the final curtain?"

"She plays a sound
Drawn from a deep-water source
She holds power"

"A love language,
Unhaltered, fragile, fluttering,
Mapped by constellations of emotions,"

"War is a nightmare, a nightmare we never wake up from.
A brutal shift in reality, a broken trust."

"hasten along the graveyard road,
with the body limp and pierced
on a rickety cart –
His soul pawned and distraught"

"I need the routine
Of the military the precision
I desire it after having sacrificed"

"About solitude I have this to say
I need the routine
Of the military the precision"

"for what if this night 
came as a spirit 
dimming out the melancholy, 
ripples of fear dissolving in a stream" 

"Whereas other tram rides are more conventional, follow standard routes, or where one finds oneself somewhat ill at ease – with someone else’s wallet pressed up against your thigh or a few smelly armpits too close for comfort. Tram 23 does not follow suit. Tram 23 is a spaceship of a different breed."

"How can nothing be growing? 
The star doctors say it is 
Is the nothingness showing?"

"sadness cannot be contained 
nor repressed 
it seeps unceremoniously 
through the tiniest slit"

"He died in isolation
Surrounded by sterile strangers
Unknown machines
In an intensive care unit
Without history or memory
Or a warm hand in his."