Gertrue Fester Comes to Milnerton Playhouse This Week

Milnerton Players will host veteran anti-apartheid activist, lecturer, author and former Commissioner on Gender Equality Prof. Gertrue Fester as she performs her one woman play Lookalike Terrorist on Friday July 12 at Milnerton Playhouse as part of the theatre's monthly Social evening. 

The playwright highlights her experiences at Istanbul airport. En route to Rome, her passport is kept by police standing at the exit of the plane. This puzzles her as all the rest of the passengers are allowed to leave after showing their passports. The fact that they were speaking a language which she assumed was Turkish and hence could not understand, further confounds her. They eventually return her passport. While she is approaching the customs, she is re-arrested by a larger group including three women. The play focuses on her thoughts and fears and her need to remain calm. This play was awarded by ArtsCape as one of four best plays submitted in 2019.  

As a founding member of many women’s organisations including the Gender Advocacy Programme, Women's Education & Artistic Voice Expression (WEAVE) Prof Fester serves on many Boards and continues to lecture at universities around the world. She has been Professor and Deputy Director for the Centre for Gender, Culture and Development in Kigali Institute of Education, Rwanda and Professor in Sociology at Sol Plaatje University. More recently she was honorary professor at the Centre for African Studies, UCT (2018-2023).

During the Struggle years, Professor Fester was held in solitary confinement where she wrote a one-woman play Apartheid’s Closet: The Spirit cannot be Caged and hassubsequently written two other plays: Yesterday’s Princess and Lookalike Terrorist. Her memoir Prison Notebook V2957/88, was published recently. She is currently producing it as an audio book

Details: 7pm on Friday 12 July at Milnerton Playhouse, Pienaar Road, Milnerton

The performance takes place in the foyer and no booking is required.

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