PRESS: THE BLUE ALBUM explores the theatrical language of memory

Vuyelwa Maluleke

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THE BLUE ALBUM is a one-woman show that uses the theatrical language of memory to confront the complicity of South African township communities in the ritualised violence of corrective rape against Lesbians in South Africa. Onstage at Theatre Arts until 19 June 2026, it is set in the township of Makaleng and follows Khumo as she revisits the spaces, relationships, and memories that mark her coming-of-age as a Black lesbian woman.

Photo Supplied.

Who Gets to Belong in South Africa? THE BLUE ALBUM explores violence, home, and the politics of exclusion.

As South Africa grapples with renewed attacks on migrants, questions of citizenship, belonging, and safety have once again entered public debate. Yet for many LGBTQIA+ people, the struggle for belonging begins much closer to home.

THE BLUE ALBUM is a one-woman performance that merges intimate monologue and movement to stage the violence of corrective rape – where lesbians are forced into socially legible performances of heterosexuality.

Written and performed by Vuyelwa Maluleke and directed by Ernest “Ginger” Baleni, THE BLUE ALBUM follows Khumo, a Black lesbian woman returning to the township she fled after surviving a corrective rape. Forced to confront the fractures of family, memory, and her communities silence; she navigates a world in which violence is sustained not only through individual acts, but through a culture of exclusion, prejudice, and complicity. She revisits the spaces, relationships, and memories that shaped her coming-of-age as a black lesbian woman.

Photo Supplied.

Through a shifting collage of characters and encounters, THE BLUE ALBUM reveals how violence is reproduced and sustained within the intimate structures of family and community through patriarchal and heteronormative systems.

Winner of the 2025 Kippies Fringe Award for outstanding performance, this production acts as both archive and witness; it names and implicates the audience in an encounter with the lived realities of black lesbian life in South Africa. 

The 2025 Kippies Fringe Award-winning and Naledi-nominated THE BLUE ALBUM asks urgent questions about who is permitted to occupy public space, who is allowed to love freely, and whose lives are considered expendable. More than fifty years after the 1976 youth uprisings, the production reflects on the unfinished work of freedom in a country where hate crimes such as corrective rape, gender-based violence and homophobia continue to shape everyday life.

At a moment when South Africans are debating who belongs within the nation, THE BLUE ALBUM poses a more intimate and unsettling question: What does home mean when the greatest threat to your safety comes from the very community meant to protect you?

Combining monologue, movement, poetry, and multiple character voices, the production examines the intersections of sexuality, violence, and belonging in contemporary South Africa. The work refuses easy resolutions, instead inviting audiences to reckon with the social and cultural conditions that continue to place Black lesbian women at risk.

Home is a wound you inherit. THE BLUE ALBUM is onstage at Theatre Arts (Methodist Church Hall, Cnr Milton Road and Wesley Street, Observatory) until 19 June 2026. You can book online at theatrearts.co.za/show/thebluealbum. Tickets are priced at R120pp.

Production: THE BLUE ALBUM

Director: Ernest 'Ginger' BALENI

Writer and Performer: Vuyelwa MALULEKE

Lighting Designer: Linda Mangena

Set Designer: Nelly SAMBO