Duke Performances is now Duke Arts presents. Learn more.

Duke Arts Presents

Farber Foundry Theater’s “MoLoRa”

Friday, March 19, 2010 | 8:00 pm

Reynolds Industries Theater


Featuring the Ngqoko Cultural Group.

This “mesmerizing” adaptation of Aeschylus’s Oresteia (Guardian UK) turns the ageless language of Greek tragedy toward a particularly modern object — South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, when torturers and tortured confronted one another in open court. As a white Klytemnestra and a black Elektra speak testimony into dark spaces, a chorus of Ngqoko elders drones laments, an unceasing, split-tone indictment that is devastating and beautiful at once. In this tragedy for the global age, classical form and contemporary life come into contact, throwing off sparks that are appropriate, since in Sesotho, MoLoRa means “ash.”

Residency runs March 16 – March 21, 2010.

Presented in association with Duke University’s Theater Studies Department with a gift from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. 

The Farber Foundry’s residency is funded, in part, by a Visiting Artist Grant from the Council for the Arts, Office of the Provost, Duke University.

 

Creator and Director: Yael Farber
Company & Stage Manager: Damon Krometis

Cast:
Klytemnestra – Dorothy Ann Gould
Elektra – Jabulile Tshabalala
Orestes – Sandile Matsheni

Chorus and Musicians:
Ngqoko Cultural Group:
Nofenishala Mvotyo
Nogcinile Yekani
Nopasile Mvotyo
Nokhaya Mvotyo
Nosomething Ntese
Tandiwe Lungisa
Tsolwana B. Mpayipheli

 

“[P]otently, elementally theatrical, mesmerizingly ritualistic, and deeply and uncompromisingly humane.”
London Times

 

A Note from MoLoRa’s Adaptor and Director, Yael Farber

 

Farber Foundry Duke Residency Schedule
with UC Berkeley Professor Catherine Cole

Tuesday, March 16
Shakespeare Workshop
With Dorothy Ann Gould
Shakespeare Studio
Brody Theater, 11:40a-12:55p

Class visit with Yael Farber
Intro to African Studies
Old Chem 116, 1:15-2:30p

Wednesday, March 17
Class visit with Yael Farber & Ngqoko Cultural Group
World Music: Aesthetic &
Anthropological Perspectives

Bone Hall 019, 10:05-11:20a

Wednesdays at the Center
Conversation with Yael Farber, Prof. Catherine Cole & Prof. Anne-Maria Makhulu
Franklin Center, Rm. 240, 12-1p

Class visit with Catherine Cole
Arts & Human Rights
Allen 103, 1:15-2:30p

Class visit with Yael Farber
Medieval Drama
Bivins 114, 2:50-4:05p

Workshop with Farber Foundry
Black Theater Workshop
Bryan Center 127, 3-4:05p


Thursday, March 18

Class visit with Yael Farber & Professor Catherine Cole
Performance Studies
Bivins 214, 10:05-11:20a

Friday, March 19
LunchBox Conversation
with Yael Farber, Farber Foundry & Professor Catherine Cole
Bryan Rehearsal Studio, 1-2:15p

PERFORMANCE:
Farber Foundry’s MoLoRa
Feat. Ngqoko Cultural Group
Reynolds Theater, 8p
Saturday, March 20
PERFORMANCE:
Farber Foundry’s MoLoRa
Feat. Ngqoko Cultural Group
Reynolds Theater, 8p
Download Farber Foundry & Catherine Cole Residency Schedule at Duke (.jpg)