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A new stage production about anti-apartheid icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela sheds light on the struggles of Black women in South Africa who spent years waiting for their husbands to return from exile, prison, or distant workplaces during white minority rule.
Adapted from Njabulo Ndebele’s novel “The Cry of Winnie Mandela”, the play delves into themes of loneliness, infidelity, and betrayal. Madikizela-Mandela—one of the most recognizable figures of South Africa’s liberation struggle—endured relentless police harassment while her husband, Nelson Mandela, and other freedom fighters were imprisoned for decades. At one point, authorities forcibly removed her from her Soweto home and banished her to Brandfort, a rural town nearly 350 kilometers (217 miles) away.
Even after she famously walked hand-in-hand with her newly freed husband in 1990, post-apartheid South Africa remained turbulent for her. Accused of involvement in kidnappings and murders of alleged apartheid informants, and facing rumors of infidelity during Mandela’s 27-year incarceration, she became a controversial figure. These allegations led to her divorce from Mandela and caused the ruling ANC to distance itself from her—a painful isolation that inspired Ndebele’s novel.
A Woman Between Heroism and Controversy
The play examines these complexities through dialogue, including a moment where a character, played by South African actor Les Nkosi, wrestles with the ANC’s rejection of Madikizela-Mandela:
“How can they implicate Winnie in such horrendous events? She is the face of our struggle. The announcement invokes in me a moral anguish from which I’m unable to escape. Is she a savior or a betrayer to us?”
One of the most powerful scenes revisits Madikizela-Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) appearance, where she was asked to apologize for her alleged role in past crimes. In a fictional monologue, she defiantly refuses, saying:
“I will not be the instrument that validates the politics of reconciliation, because the politics of reconciliation demands my annihilation. All of you have to reconcile not with me, but the meaning of me. The meaning of me is the constant search for the right thing to do.”
Black Women’s Untold Stories
For director Momo Matsunyane, the play is not just about Madikizela-Mandela—it is about the forgotten role of Black women in the liberation struggle, many of whom ran households alone while raising children in the absence of their husbands.
“Apartheid dismantled the Black family in a terrible way. How do you raise Black men and women when the household is incomplete?” Matsunyane reflects.
The production also portrays the stories of ordinary women affected by the struggle. In one scene, members of a support group called “Ibandla Labafazi Abalindileyo” (Organization of Women in Waiting) share their painful experiences. One woman recalls how her husband abandoned her after returning home 14 years later to find she had a child with another man. Another reveals that her husband, after being freed from prison, left her to start a new family with a white woman.
Madikizela-Mandela, portrayed by Thembisa Mdoda, engages with these women, answering their questions and confronting the difficult choices she made.
Bringing History to Life
Set against the backdrop of protest music from the apartheid era, the play debuted at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg, a historic venue for South African political drama. It will run until March 15, offering audiences a fresh perspective on one of the most complex figures in the nation’s history.
Through its raw and intimate portrayal, the production not only revisits Madikizela-Mandela’s triumphs and controversies but also amplifies the voices of Black women whose sacrifices shaped South Africa’s freedom struggle.
