A Story of the Journey to Ancestral Healing.
île is the coming-of-age story following an 18-year-old Sophie Joans who visits her ancestral home, Mauritius. Her trip to the tropical island to connect with her extended family (and have some fun away from her mother) gets too real as she uncovers the dark history of her family and the inner-truths settling underneath the island- a volcano is still waiting to erupt.
Joans explores her identity as a young white woman navigating the Eastern Cape, Cape Town, and Mauritius. What she does so effortlessly is allow her audience to sit in the uncomfortable, the intersectional, the unspoken, and the oft taboo. Rich in its delivery, you are left with a sense of growing together with Joans, her intimate family memories, become yours and the deep love of her mother rests in the umbilical cord of Île.
"Joans opens a much-needed conversation within the South African context"
On many levels, her one-woman performance is a retelling of the un-spokenness of memory, the unwavering ancestral lava that lingers in our aging bones, and the spaces of travel that trigger the unraveling of lineage. A uniquely South African tale of pure vulnerability, talent, comedy, and riveting poetic lyricism in the reclaiming of the personal.
Sophie Joans is a Cape Town-based storyteller, producer, comedian and theatre-maker (to name a few). She considers herself a South African but also a second-generation Mauritian. Her mother is from Mauritius, and between her connection to the Island and her deep love for storytelling, her solo-theatrical performance was unearthed.
Joans studied theatre at UCT, Wits, and then completed short courses- specifically in clowning- at RADA in London. Also under her belt are a few courses in clowning under the mentorship of the infamous Jon Davison. Joans has always felt an inclination toward clowning as her favourite style of performance and has allowed for her training and love for the form to bleed into Île.
"The clown falls down so that we don’t have to"
For her, clowning offers a safe space that holds her work delicately. She says, “there is a beautiful saying in clowning, and it goes, ‘the clown falls down so that we don’t have to’ and that is where we can allow for failure and embarrassment.”
Île had not always been what it became and had undergone a journey of its own. Sparked by Joans’ participation in a Zoom course, during lockdown with Jessica Mitolo from The Second City in Toronto, on improv, storytelling, and solo performance. Joans had always known that she would write a piece on Mauritius and her mother, which of course, has clearly and poetically been translated through Île. But, when Joans was in Mauritius as a young 18-year-old, she had already been thinking through much of the story. Little did she know, this was only scratching the surface and allowed for it to sit with her for six years.
In the lockdown and through the Zoom course, she scripted the first version of the fully fleshed-out narrative and performed it at the National Arts Festival 2021, directed by Richard White. This version was the opening for Joans to sit with the grief, the re-telling of the personal story, and the sitting with the difficulties it had presented her with. In many ways, this process challenged her mental health and moved her into various states of being. Ultimately, it was a healing process- the personal mode of storytelling and what it may unlock within us.
"It is very sad to write about my mother and my ancestors, who were not great."
According to Joans, the National Arts version was sadder, and what she really needed was more time to sit with herself and what she had finally crafted after six long years. Following this, she worked with Rob Van Vuuren. He helped and guided her work to what it was meant to become- an extremely collaborative process, which was rooted in conversation, genuine storytelling and an evolution to it becoming Île. If anything, Joans opens a much-needed conversation within the South African context, telling a story that is both self-reflexive and socially conscious. What her performance and unique storytelling technique does is shift the conversation from a theatrical “whiteness which takes up space on a stage in Cape Town” to that of a “whiteness that sits in the discomfort of itself.” She comments that the conversation must start somewhere before we, as Africans and South Africans and white South Africans, can explore the solutions.
As someone who has dedicated my life to making work on my mother and though my form is that of the visual arts, Île had reinforced many of the moments I had to sit with my own, what I term, 'motherness'. Mothers and daughters: a tale as old as time. Where do we begin? How do we sit with the traumas inherited? Or the extreme love? Or the longing for them whenever we are in those very dark spaces? Or their laughs as it comes to hold us? Or their loud voices as they come to embarrass us? Or their…. Their… presence. Through île, there are many moments where I sat and thought “yep, so I wasn’t the only one with a complex mother, dysfunctional family and lineage strewn about…” Sophie Joans has a way with speaking back to the truthful realities that we so often found ourselves lost or in love in.
She says:
“I didn’t want to write this. Writing this was very hard. I suppose because it is very sad to write about my mother and my ancestors, who were not great. I know that my performance makes everyone laugh. But it also makes many cry. After every show, I cry. But I would like to think that it is honest because at the end of the day, you just have this story, and you hope that it lands somewhere for someone.”
Director - Rob van Vuuren is a multi-award comedian, actor, director and writer. He has been bringing new work to the National Arts Festival for nearly 30 years. His previous directing work includes: KG Mokgadi’s ‘Heavy’, Stuart Taylor’s ‘Funny You Should Say That’, Bevan Cullinan’s ‘Gary the Tooth Fairy’, Louw Venter’s ‘Best Man’s Speech’, Gaëtan Schmidt’s ‘Rumpsteak’, Scott Sparrow’s ‘Isabella’, and more.
Writer & Performer - Sophie Joans is an award-winning theatre-maker from Cape Town with Mauritian roots. She studied theatre at UCT and Wits, and completed short courses at RADA, Comedy Cellar and Second City. Her previous works include two-hander ‘The Flower Hunters’ (2021 – Winner of Standard Bank Ovation Award) and puppet show ‘Do You Dream In Colour’ (2018 – Winner of Zabalaza Festival’s Most Innovative Play). She collaborated on the short film, Verloren (2021 – Winner of Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award). Île is her debut solo play.
