Farber Foundry Theater Company Photo credit: Ruphin Coudyzer

DURHAM, N.C. - When he first accepted the part of Orestes in "Molora," director Yael Farber's adaption of Aeschylus's Oresteia Trilogy to post-apartheid South Africa, Sandile Matsheni thought it was just another job.

"But along the way, performing and seeing the response from the audience, it was no longer a show, it was something like therapy, something that I should do, to go out and tell people what happened in my country," the South African actor told an audience at Duke's John Hope Franklin Center on Wednesday.

Matsheni and Farber joined actors from the play, Duke cultural anthropology professor Anne-Maria Makhulu, University of California at Berkeley professor Catherine Cole and Duke Performances director Aaron Greenwald for a discussion about the play.

Aeschylus' trilogy centers on a cycle of revenge killings that follows King Agamemmon's return to Greece. It ends with a debate about whether injustice must be met with violence and the role of mercy in dispensing justice.

The panelists discussed how the play translated to post-apartheid South Africa. Creating Molora, which means "ash" in the Sesotho language, was a way to articulate what she thought was a different story from what typically comes out of Africa "which is inevitably about devastation, frustration and suffering," said Farber. Searching for something "intimate enough to hold the very personal nature of sitting opposite someone who killed your child," Farber came upon the classic Greek tragedy and adapted it to the story of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Actress Dorothy Ann Gould, who plays Klytemnestra, said acting in the play has also been a form of therapy for her.

"I lived for many years with this huge burden of guilt. I didn't know how to heal myself, or rid myself of that burden," she said of being a white South African. "Performing in this play has taken me on an unusual journey which in itself has been healing."

Farber said she didn't intend for the play to be a means of therapy for her actors.

"If the actors have gained something in the process akin to therapy, that's a wonderful byproduct of storytelling, but we are storytellers," she said. "As soon as you delude yourself into thinking ‘I will create something that therapizes actors and audiences,' you will get lost along the way."

South African actress Jabulile Tshabalala, who plays Elektra, said the process of talking in itself is healing.

"I feel more lucky than other people who are just sitting there with all their grudges," she said. "For me they are like a time bomb waiting to explode. Here we say we can probably forgive, but let's not forget -- it's okay if you revisit the past with an open mind."

Sponsored by Duke Performances, Molora will run Friday, March 19 and Saturday, March 20 at 8 p.m. in Reynolds Theater. Farber Foundry Theater Company also is participating in a series of free, public residency events throughout the week.