Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Tin Bucket Drum: Questions with Neil Coppen
- Selection of images from various performances
- Tin Bucket Drum: the play script
- Note on staging
- Scene 1 A celebration
- Scene 2 The journey
- Scene 3 Mkhulu's welcome
- Scene 4 A child is born
- Scene 5 Awakening
- Scene 6 Sermon
- Scene 7 Silent confinement
- Scene 8 Mkhulu's story
- Scene 9 Integration
- Scene 10 Problem child
- Scene 11 Legacy
- Scene 12 Rehabilitation
- Scene 13 Community service
- Scene 14 Revolution
- Scene 15 Lullaby
Scene 15 - Lullaby
from Tin Bucket Drum: the play script
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Tin Bucket Drum: Questions with Neil Coppen
- Selection of images from various performances
- Tin Bucket Drum: the play script
- Note on staging
- Scene 1 A celebration
- Scene 2 The journey
- Scene 3 Mkhulu's welcome
- Scene 4 A child is born
- Scene 5 Awakening
- Scene 6 Sermon
- Scene 7 Silent confinement
- Scene 8 Mkhulu's story
- Scene 9 Integration
- Scene 10 Problem child
- Scene 11 Legacy
- Scene 12 Rehabilitation
- Scene 13 Community service
- Scene 14 Revolution
- Scene 15 Lullaby
Summary
There is an extended silence.
Lights up on NANDI, cradling the body of NOMVULA [red cloth] in her arms. She begins singing softly, her voice trembling. Tears overcome her.
*THIS song is an English translation of the original isiZulu.
NANDI: They taught me to never sing these songs.
They made me leave your bedroom in silence each night.
They made us forget our freedom.
But you, you my child
taught us how to fight.
Now I shall sing.
Sing you your first lullaby.
Sing you to sleep.
Sing you goodbye.
Sing now, the rains have come.
Sing for this new morning.
The struggle that you fought.
The struggle that you won.
Sing you your first lullaby.
Sing you to sleep.
Sing you goodbye.
NANDI places her ear to the child's heart. For the final time the PERCUSSIONIST creates the sound of the heart slowing, softening, then stopping.
Lights fade.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Tin Bucket Drum , pp. 45Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2016