Rugged Whiskey

Over the course of an hour the carefully constructed life of a sexually repressed lesbian woman unravels as she wrestles with a leaking pipe, secrets from a home she can no longer run or hide from and her unexplored desire for deep pleasure with another woman. Thokozani is a 33-year-old virgin who knows that she is a lesbian but still grapples with deep shame about her carnal nature. From her tiny flat in 1999’s Hilbrow, Johannesburg, Thokozani muses and fantasises about the women she has met in the wild city she now calls home. There is Magdalene, a new friend and Sunday School teacher who uses her position in the church to impart feminist principles to the young women in her charge. And then Linda, the sensual and intimidating femme housewife of the block of flat’s handy-woman. Lastly, but not the least, there is Antoinette, the centre of Thokozani’s sexual curiosity, and Linda’s lover, who does maintenance jobs around the flat and gifts all newcomers a bottle of whiskey. Each of these women offer Thokozani glimpses of who she could be if she could find a way to relinquish her inhibitions and make peace with who she is and what she wants. Rugged Whiskey is at times comical, other times sombre and always earnest in its exploration of desire, religious repression and the inner conflict between being who you are expected to be and choosing to be your fullest, most desirous self.

This one-hander is loosely inspired by an erotic short story by Mercy Thokozane Minah and was adapted into a play-script in consultation with Smamkele Mentyisi during several conversations via text and over drinks at Ganesh in Observatory, Cape Town.

CREATIVE TEAM

Smamkele Mentyisi - Director

Smamkele Mentyisi is a writer, director, and performance artist based in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. He holds a BA (Hons) in Theatre & Performance Studies, majoring in Theatre Making, from the University of Cape Town. His work explores themes of queerness, masculinity, and spirituality in post-apartheid South Africa, using interdisciplinary approaches that combine performance, visual imagery, sound, and immersive theatrical practices.

Mercy Thokozana Minah - Writer and Performer

Mercy Thokozane Minah (b. 1992) is a queer multidisciplinary culture worker who has been making art in several mediums for over five years. Their focus is Black queer and trans* intimacy and its capacity to be transformative and liberatory. Rugged Whiskey is their second theatrical offering as writer and performer, set to be directed by Smamkele Mentyisi and staged at Theatre Arts, Observatory.