Directed with a muscularity and sense of conviction, this beautifully researched and deeply felt performance takes advocacy theatre which talks to the man on the street to a level that is considerably deeper and theatrically more developed than convention dictates. Normally, you might hear the words ‘community theatre’ or ‘advocacy drama’ and shrink away from the product’s aesthetic value, understanding it to be a mere one-dimensional extrapolation of bald ideologies. But the adjective ‘mere’ doesn’t fi t in any understanding of this poignant and hard hitting play.
— Robyn Sassen, My View

Ulwembu powerfully reveals the root causes of substance abuse.
— South African Police Service

Danger stalks the township of KwaMashu, near Durban. It comes in the form of whoonga (known as nyaope elsewhere), a toxic mix of B-grade heroin, rat poison and other chemical components that almost immediately sucks its users into a vortex of addiction and the crime, deception and personal tragedy that goes with it. Caught up in the web, the ulwembu of the title (spider’s web in isiZulu), presided over by the dealer, Bongani Mseleku, are Lieutenant Portia Mthembu, a police officer in the frontline of the fight against the scourge; her son Sipho; his friend, Andile Nxumalo, and Emmanuel Abreu, a Mozambique-born spaza shopkeeper. As it traces Sipho’s descent from talented scholar and aspirant poet and songwriter to suicidal addict, Ulwembu explores the effects of addiction not only on those who suffer from it but on communities, families and the police, both those who try to control the murderous trade and those who benefit from it. Using a process they have dubbed Empatheatre, The Big Brotherhood, Neil Coppen, Dylan McGarry and Mpume Mtombeni, aim to share ‘people’s real-life stories, with the intention to inspire and develop a greater empathy and kindness in spaces where there is conflict or injustice’. Ulwembu is the dramatic result of their efforts.

Introduction – Dylan McGarry
Foreword – Monique Marks
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Ulwembu: the script

Empatheatre, co-founded by Dylan McGarry, Neil Coppen and Mpume Mthombeni, is inspired by South African struggle theatre, the theatre of the oppressed. Empatheatre researches and shares people’s real-life stories, with the intention of inspiring and developing a greater empathy and kindness in complex social learning spaces beset by confl ict or injustice.
The Big Brotherhood is an award-winning theatre and production company based in Durban. Formed by a dynamic group of artists that create productions about crime and jail life and performing them in schools and theatres in KwaZulu-Natal.

Directed with a muscularity and sense of conviction, this beautifully researched and deeply felt performance takes advocacy theatre which talks to the man on the street to a level that is considerably deeper and theatrically more developed than convention dictates. Normally, you might hear the words ‘community theatre’ or ‘advocacy drama’ and shrink away from the product’s aesthetic value, understanding it to be a mere one-dimensional extrapolation of bald ideologies. But the adjective ‘mere’ doesn’t fi t in any understanding of this poignant and hard hitting play.
— Robyn Sassen, My View

Ulwembu powerfully reveals the root causes of substance abuse.
— South African Police Service