Our Lady of Benoni teems with anecdotes and incidents, pulses with desire and frustration, juxtaposes different cultural norms and plays exuberantly with fantasies and truths that cluster around the subject of virginity. Its tone is zany, its subject matter serious.

Zakes Mda's satire is a kaleidoscopic display of the extremes to which men and women are prepared to go to preserve and value what is ‘virginal’. Mda presents us with the consequences of transgressing socially instilled norms in sexual behaviour: that which is polluted is seen and judged to be dangerous to the good health and purity of a group, a society and its culture. He shows us how taboos, superstition, custom and moral ethics construct a ‘map’ to live by in order to maintain an acceptable reputation and avoid being stigmatised. Mda also exposes the superstitions, customs and beliefs about sexuality that guide our everyday behaviour. His new play explores relations between knowledge and sex, along with how these are symbolised in the way we speak, write and think about the female body and sexual politics.

Mda's writing draws on his extensive experience as a theatre-maker who is thoroughly familiar with crafting a means of speaking to an audience through the multiple resources of the medium of theatre. He uses the setting (place and time), characterisation, dialogue and action in a manner that is both playful and profoundly challenging and searching in its treatment of contemporary issues.

His writing also draws on a richly informed and subtle appreciation of multiple dramatic and literary traditions. Our Lady of Benoni fuses satirical elements derived from classical poetry with a modernist sensibility. Mda synthesises Brechtian and Absurdist features of theatricality (story-telling techniques and ways of developing characters) that allow us to appreciate the fictional quality of the story he is telling. But at the same time, this work is a profound exploration of what it means to operate in the real world, the social and politically charged landscape that defines post-apartheid South Africa.