Smoke & Mirrors Collaborative returns with a tale of the pitfalls of progress in South Africa

When it premiered at FringeNYC 2013, Zoey Martinson’s Ndebele Funeral was a must-see, winning the Overall Excellence Award for Best Play. The limited nature of the Fringe (and the cozy seating arrangement in Teatro Circulo) ensured that not everyone who wanted to see it got to. Thankfully, this politically hard-hitting and lyrical play is receiving an extended run at 59E59 Theaters. The good news is that it has lost none of its original power and relevance. In fact, the performances of the three-person cast have only deepened over the past year. Daweti (Martinson) is a South-African law-school graduate living in a shack in Soweto Township, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. She has few possessions beyond her broken dreams. Her home is a wreck, with garbage and empty beer bottles strewn across the floor. The one piece of furniture in the house in relatively good shape is a large and ornately decorated wooden box. Daweti is suffering from advanced-stage AIDS and this is the coffin she has built for herself, using materials sent by the ANC government for the purpose of constructing a new home.