REVIEW: FORGOTTEN VOICES by David Moorhead at Canal Café Theatre 13 - 15 October 2022 & on tour

‘…blending the personal and the political to hugely emotional effect…’ ★★★

Perhaps the most moving aspect of David Moorhead’s play ‘Forgotten Voices’ is the sense that there is further material lying dormant within the life of its subject, which cannot now ever be fully recaptured. Eva Moorhead Kadalie, the wife of Clements Kadalie, South Africa’s first black national trade union leader, was also a trade unionist and campaigner in her own right. Where Clements’ story has become part of the historical canon – his statue stands alongside Nelson Mandela’s in the Long Walk to Freedom Park in South Africa – Eva’s has been forgotten.

Moorhead’s play wisely chooses to introduce us to the main character as she boards a ship, still toying with the decision of whether to depart her home in South Africa for Great Britain. From this vantage point, the play is structured simply but effectively around a series of reflections, addressed directly to the city of Durban, which is here personified as a kind of loving albeit distant sister. The play is ambitious in its scope, beginning with a young Eva, already smarting at the bitter and violent racism of South Africa in the early 20^th century and leads us quickly through the years to an adult woman with grown children of her own. There is the sense that the play could easily have chosen to focus on any one of Eva’s disparate lives: as a young child reckoning with her position as the daughter of a black African mother and a white European father; her rapturous love for her husband and their erstwhile difficult marriage, or her struggles with mental health in a society totally unequipped to deal with it. There is so much more to know, but the play does a fine job of introducing us.

The play is written with palpable admiration by her real-life grandson, the playwright David Moorhead, blending the personal and political to hugely moving effect. While there are instances where some of the dialogue feels inauthentic, this is compensated by the powerful, emotional weight of the story. In the play’s final moments, the playwright makes a bold choice that reminds us of his proximity to these events. This is not ancient history, these are our contemporaries, and there are photographs in our hands to prove it.

Shareesa Valentine radiates compassion and warmth as Eva, convincingly stepping into the role of union spokesperson when delivering Eva’s real speeches, lovingly recreated here by Moorhead. Her journey from naïve, hopeful daughter, to fierce political strategist and finally heartbroken mother is performed with poise and intelligence.

The play will continue to tour throughout the month of October, Black History Month in the UK.

Read our interview with the playwright (and grandson of Eva Moorhead Kadalie), David Moorhead here

FORGOTTEN VOICES by David Moorhead

Canal Café Theatre 13 - 15 October 2022 & on tour

Box Office https://canalcafetheatre.com/our-shows/forgotten-voices/

Twitter: @EvaVoices

Reviewer: Natalie Mackinnon

Natalie is a writer and playwright from Edinburgh. She is a graduate of the Lir Academy for Dramatic Arts in Dublin and the Traverse Young Writers group in Edinburgh. Her writing has been performed on stage in the UK and Ireland and has been adapted for radio by the BBC