Waves of philosophy and the absurd in powerful commentary on postcolonial Africa
First produced in 1995, Zakes Mda’s play mirrors the broken promises, greed, corruption and hunger for power in the postapartheid government
You Fool, How Can The Sky Fall, The Mother Of All Eating and We Shall Sing For The Fatherland may be considered to be novelist and playwright Zakes Mda’s trilogy exploring themes of political betrayal and the dysfunction of postcolonial African countries. First produced in 1995, You Fool, How Can The Sky Fall mirrors the broken promises, greed, corruption and preoccupation with power by the postapartheid government. It was hailed as prophetic. But for Mda, whose scepticism was fueled by his observations of politics on the continent, the play was meant as an extended metaphor on the postcolonial African condition. Its continental appeal is one of the main reasons behind the staging of You Fool at the Market Theatre alongside the Congolese play, Congo: The Trial Of King Leopold II. “We wanted to run it concurrently with a Congolese play about King Leopold to create a conversation between these two African works about man’s obsession with power,” says director James Ngcobo. “I have alw...
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