TV and stage actor Fansiwa Yisa kicks off the year on a high note after landing a role in a powerful stage show that tackles land issues.

Yisa is part of the new show called Oedipus at Colonus: #aftersophocles. It was written by ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles at the end of his life when he was an old man facing his own death.

It is the third play in the so-called Theban cycle, the first being Oedipus Rex and the second being Antigone. However, in terms of the chronology of the Theban narrative, the action of the play precedes the action of Antigone. It found its way to Baxter Theatre in Cape Town because the land issue is still topical even after so many centuries.

In bringing the story to life, Yisa is assisted by Andrew Buckland and Jennie Reznek.

The play is about the land and belonging to the land, or more precisely, a desperate desire to belong to the land. It further deals with issues of land dispossession, occupations and removals.

Playing the role of Theseus, Yisa finds the story very complex and the cast is using an old script and re-imagining it to bring it to current times. Award-winning writer Qondiswa James has been brought in to modernise the old script for actors.

“Oedipus is a king from Colonus. He receives a prophecy that he must kill his father and marry his mother and have kids with her. But the whole thing backfired and no one wanted him afterwards. He had to go out and seek exile and ended up in a new country.

“But now there is a catch; there is a prophecy that Oedipus needs to find a secret place where he will be buried and that place will flourish. Now the question is, what happens when you give an outsider land that has not been used because it was historically regarded as a sacred? This is where the politics comes in.”

The 47-year-old finds the story relevant and still appeals to many communities in Africa, arguing that it was only in this continent that Africans were not owning land. She likened the story to a matter that is in Cape Town courts where a corporate company built on a land that was owned by indigenous people. According to indigenous people from Cape Town this place is regarded as a sacred place and they want to be paid for it being used.

“The show poses questions we do not have answers to. It poses questions like who has the right to build on sacred land? That is a very deep and important story. It is important because when people get their land, which was repossessed, they normally do not know know what to do with it. We continue to ask those questions, what does it mean to get the land back?”

Yisa explains that the story is told through music, that is why music genius Neo Muyanga is brought in and students from Magnet Theatre productions.

“The dancers bring a different element, which is movement. It brings strong evocative physical imagery, a surprising staging and now a compelling poetic text in English and isiXhosa [with subtitles].”

After the show wraps the season, Yisa is set to tour Ireland and Scotland around June with The Life and Times of Michael K. The show was produced in collaboration with a German Theatre Company.