Commission Continua is another striking theatrical offering by Phala Ookeditse Phala and Tony Bonani Miyambo. Thirty years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the production offers a searing reflection on South Africa’s ongoing struggle for justice, accountability, and meaningful change.
Having toured internationally to critical acclaim in London, Los Angeles, Germany and Singapore, Commission Continua continues to resonate globally as a bold interrogation of bureaucracy, memory, and the politics of documentation.
At its centre is Bright Maluleke, an unassuming records clerk tasked with photocopying and archiving the findings of South Africa’s many commissions of inquiry. As he processes affidavit after affidavit, report after report, the distance between paper and lived reality begins to collapse. What begins as routine administration spirals into a visceral reckoning with the violence, grief, and unanswered truths buried within the archive.
Performed in a stripped-down environment of a photocopier, microphone, and live loop station, Commission Continua transforms bureaucratic language into a haunting sonic and theatrical landscape.
The production interrogates a central paradox of South African democracy: the meticulous recording of truth without the delivery of justice. It asks whether commissions of inquiry serve as instruments of accountability, or whether they risk becoming rituals of delay, endlessly producing paper while the country remains in crisis.
Fierce, darkly comic and deeply humane, Commission Continua becomes an act of protest against bureaucratic indifference, asking how much more paper must be produced before genuine justice and reconciliation can begin.
Critics have described the work as:
“A devastating one-hander… the culpability buried under mountains of paperwork.”
“Highly effective and emotionally charged… a cutting and intelligent critique.”
“An act of protest… calling out the broken system… performed with harrowing emotion.”
Commission Continua is not simply a performance. It is an inquiry. A provocation. A demand.
Production Credits
Tony Miyambo
Phala Ookeditse Phala
About the Artists
Bonani Tony Miyambo | Conceptualizer & Performer
Tony is a BA (Dramatic Arts) Graduate from the University of the Witwatersrand and the Co-Director of Noma Yini. A company that provides specialised services in the creative industry. Over his career, Tony has produced and performed numerous independent theatre productions, some of which have toured and won awards globally. His body of work includes acclaimed solo performances; The Cenotaph of Dan Wa Moriri, Commission Continua, and internationally acclaimed Kafka’s Ape. Tony was also awarded the 2012 Brett Goldin Award and studied with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon, UK.
Phala Ookeditse Phala | Conceptualizer, Writer & Director
Phala is a multi-award-winning ‘storyier’ in the form of a playwright, theatre-maker, dramaturg and director whose work has won awards in South Africa, USA, Czech Republic, Australia and Scotland. He is the Co-Director of Noma Yini. His over 20 years experience arts practice includes working at The Centre for the Less Good Idea as its Animateur. He holds a Masters in Dramatic Arts from University of the Witwatersrand. His works champion emotional and psychologically stimulating storytelling as a uniquely African aesthetic. His focus and interest are on methodologies of making and creating work in ways that collapse and disrupt conventional norms.
Trailer
- Venue: St Andrew's Hall
- Location: St Andrew's College
- Ticket price: ZAR 120.00
- Programme type: The Fringe
- Genre: Theatre
- Duration: 65 minutes
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Ages:
14+
