Qaqambile Mdledle
Angola Camp Thirteen, a
musical theatre production by Sello Maseko, was the biggest winner at the 2020
Naledi Theatre Awards. The production scooped six awards, one of which was for
the best choreography at the awards ceremony which took place over the weekend.
Sello Maseko, is a product of
the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation’s Ishashalazi
theatre development programme.
Maseko, studied drama at the
University of Witwatersrand. His parents were political activists and he was
born in Tanzania in 1984. He began writing the play Angola between 2016 and 2018.
The production was selected to be developed by the State Theatre’s Incubator
programme.
Maseko first got involved in
the Ishashalazi development programme in 2011, when he participated in the
training workshops for writing and directing. He said that the story of killings
and torture in Quatro have been called a fairy-tale even by those who were in
exile.
“No one knew about it, including
the people from exile, when you speak about Quatro, they would l tell you that
you are lying, that there was no such thing. Minister of State Security, Ayanda
Dlodlo went to exile when she was 17 years-old. She said that she has lived in
Angola for many years and can attest that this thing of Quatro is a fairy-tale,”
Maseko added.
As part of his research for his
play, Maseko spoke to victims and their families and read books by authors like
Mwezi Twala.
Although the play focuses on
the torture of one man in the camp, Maseko says this doesn’t mean women were
treated any better. 
“Due to time, I wanted to tell
a particular story but the story of women in exile is a story on its own, he
said.
Before writing the play,
Maseko went to Angola, he reiterates that when he was there he felt the spirits
of those who died there.
“I cried. I came back and said
to myself, I have document my experience, because those spirits communicated
that they wanted to be released. They wanted me to tell the world what happened
to them because no one was saying anything,” he said.