Madiba Zenani
theatre
Directed and written by Jocelyne LAVEILLE | Performed by Erick ISANA and Keïla MADI
13+
Madiba Zenani was born out of a fit of anger in a bar in Saint-Denis (Réunion). At the next table, a group of tourists just back from South Africa:
"Nothing has changed there, it’s still just as violent and poor.”
Were they saying that the end of apartheid had served no purpose, or very little? That centuries of injustice could be repaired in just twenty years?
A surge of anger rose within me, and a need to respond. So I wrote this two-voice play—two paths towards freedom and equality: The voice of Madiba, who passed away in 2013, the voice of political reflection and knowledge. The voice of Zénani, his great-granddaughter, who died in a car accident in 2010 at the age of thirteen, the voice of anger, of youthful radicalism.
And this question: How did they manage to resist rage, hatred, the desire for revenge, the urge to humiliate after apartheid?
To embody Madiba and Zénani, Erick Isana, to whom I had said twenty years ago that I could see him in the role of Nelson Mandela, and Keila Madi, a young actress from the Réunion Conservatory, endowed with great sensitivity and astonishing maturity.
In a stripped-down scenography, two committed actors summon for us the recent history of an Indian Ocean people, through a fictional confrontation, on the edge of death.
They have quoted Martin Luther King, they have invoked Pasteur, they still try to reach understanding. But time catches up with them, and the fear of infinity grips them.
“Lay your fear in my hands,” he tells her.
Perhaps now they are ready to step into the Pantheon of the centuries to come. Perhaps they walk toward what our perceptions of history will make of them.
A Masterful Performance. Erick Isana is Madiba Mandela—a magnificent actor, intense, embodying this towering historical figure with simplicity and authenticity. You believe him, and it’s magic. Keïla Madi brings Zénani to life with conviction and spark, capturing both youthful rebellion and profound truth.
A heartfelt thank you to the Compagnie Téat La Kour. We need these precious moments that remind us that Theatre transcends all, and that the living arts are the antidote to a world weighed down by despair.
