Reviewed by OSKAR KEOGH
20 February 2026
History can often form a vacuum, enveloping entire lives that were lived with all kinds of joys and trepidations, only to spit them back out as minor footnotes. Such is the case with one Abram Ramothibi Onkgopotse Tiro. A largely unsung hero of the Apartheid resistance who has been revived with great care and specificity through the writing and performance of theatre maker Ayanda ka Nobakabonwa.
“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake!” declares Abram Ramothibi Onkgopotse Tiro. This line, borrowed from James Joyce’s Ulysses, forms a constant refrain throughout the formidable one-hander that is Tiro’s Toughloop Testimony, holding a limited season at Theatre Arts from 30 - 31 January 2026. The quote has travelled some time and distance from the pages of an Irish novelist writing at the beginning of the 20th century. But ka Nobakabonwa’s inclusion of it speaks to the nature of being a student of history; one tends to accumulate a collection of ghosts along the way.
The play acts as a kind of history lesson, placing the audience in the classroom where Tiro taught the pupils of Morris Isaacs High in the early 1970s. This class would have included some of the students who would go on to organise the Soweto Uprisings of 1976.
Tiro introduces himself while standing, excitable but resolute, amid a flurry of chalk text which has managed to escape the confines of two separate blackboards and has run onto the desk and floor. Legible in the chaos of this scrawl lies a historical inventory which includes “Group Areas Act”, “Frelimo”, “Cape of Bad Hope” and “World War One and Two”, otherwise playfully and aptly referred to as “White War One and White War Two”.
This is just one example of an attempt to flip the script and draw matters into a scale of measurement which refuses to accept the loss of white lives as somehow more significant or tragic than that of black lives. A racist presumption that embeds itself in the works of scholars even today. As Tiro calls the class to session, there is a vibrancy which seems to harken back to the FeesMustFall movement. Where impassioned leaders worked collectively to find an educational praxis that did not betray them. Making makeshift classrooms out of occupied hallways and empty offices, working to decode the trappings of the historical moment they found themselves in. The nightmare from which they were trying to awaken.
Ka Nobakabonwa’s performance reads like both a sermon and a warning from the past. The gravitas of his presence is undeniable. He moves with the carefree abandon of a true eccentric lost in his own stream of consciousness. Flying about the stage, he possesses a shapeshifting physicality, seamlessly switching personas and bringing to life not only Tiro but a small cast of characters surrounding him. This allows some of the intellectually wrought monologuing to be punctuated by moments of heartfelt levity and humour. The production strikes a careful balance in this respect, which can be attributed to the admirable directorial work of Mfundo Zono.
Much of the play’s text is inspired by a speech given by the real Tiro, known as the “Turfloop Testimony”, which he presented in 1972 at what is now the University of Limpopo. It was a stirring speech opposing the Bantu Education Act, resulting in his immediate expulsion. While many of the historical specificities tie the testimony to its time and place, it is a terrible wonder how many of its core grievances still ring true.
Beyond acting as a homage to this overlooked activist, the play explores the undeniable importance of teachers. Celebrating their capacity to ignite friction fires in the hearts and minds of the youth.
There was an immediacy and urgency to this powerhouse performance. An energy which seemed to shake something loose from the well-worn and oftentimes sequestered route of one’s daily life. Leaving the theatre, there was a quiet but discernible buzz, the kind that stays with you in an aftershock.
Tiro’s ToughLoop Testimony is written and performed by Ayanda Ka Nobakabonwa, directed by Mfundo Zono, lighting designed by Mluleki Titi and stage managed by Mojalefa Koyana.