Rise 76: The Story of June 16th

Many things can prompt a recollection of a particular time in your life. Smell is a particularly powerful one.   

I recently noticed a foul smell in the air over our West Coast neighbourhood and remarked that it smelled like tear gas. The fact that I had teargas as a point of reference was funny to my family, at first. But it stirred a memory of the Apartheid-era riots I experienced growing up on the Cape Flats, back in the eighties.

Just a few days later, I would watch Rise 76, further stoking the uneasy power of these memories and making Tiisetso Mashifane wa Noni’s new production profoundly arresting. This play does not simply ask you to remember June 16, 1976. It hits uncomfortably hard, reminding us how close that history still sits beneath our skin.  

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Soweto student uprising, Rise ’76: The Story of June 16 takes you to Molefe Secondary. In this fictional Soweto school, learners, teachers, and parents are pushed to the breaking point by being forced to use Afrikaans as the medium of instruction.

What begins as black consciousness and progressive, thought-provoking incitement through poetry outside the classroom's walls soon gathers momentum into the terrible force of that historic day.

Mashifane wa Noni, a two-time Fleur du Cap-winning playwright and director, avoids the broad textbook version of the uprising. Instead, she works in smaller, sharper moments by depicting a student meeting, a teacher’s fear, a mother’s grief, the bodies after the violence and the individuals who mopped up the pieces.

Crafted from the actual accounts of 40 individuals, archival records, and literature, it grounds the ficticious in its harrowing reality.

“With an event of this magnitude, thousands of details can easily fall through the cracks. So, with this play, I’ve only picked up what I think are only a couple of crumbs - but the crumbs do give us an idea of the various flavours of that terrible day,” says Mashifane wa Noni.

Much like my teargas memory, the play scripts the possibility of bringing into the present what that fateful day might mean to each of us as South Africans, whether we lived parts of the liberation, or not. It results in a production that is intimate, inherently humane, but often difficult to watch.

Vivid emotional containment 

The ensemble cast is superb! Alex Sono, Ben Albertyn, Botlhale Mahlangu, Zilungile Mbombo, Mfuneli Ntumbuka, Sbuja Dywili and Deon Lotz shift between characters with striking control, building a portrait of a community under pressure. Even the police officers are rendered with chilling specificity, as men who chose to act, whether on command or not, most brutally.   

Three wooden boxes anchor Leopold Senekal’s set design. Seemingly sparse but effective as a backdrop for Xolelwa Nhlabatsi’s AV designs. It represents both school furniture, a home on Vilakasi Street, as well as the vivid emotional containment and compartmentalisation of each character's experiece of that day. The use of archival black-and-white imagery adds weight, though the projections, while emulating the lucid state of remembering, could have been slightly sharper. Still, the overall design lands, supported by Franky Steyn’s lighting and Jannous Nkululeko Aukema’s sound.

Speaking of which, there were audible reactions from the audience on opening night, small gasps of disbelief at the cruelty endured by children, parents and teachers, as well as the lack of accountability.  

A closing moment of a black policeman's regret, as he lays the confiscated poetry book at the feet of a grieving parent, carries incredible emotional weight in its silent portrayal - especially as the fact that no policemen were ever charged for the hundreds of lives lost that day, nor appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Rise ’76 is not easy theatre. It is painful and deeply necessary. Long after the final scene, it lingers, much like the memory of teargas.    

Historical significance 

The production marks a significant moment for both the Baxter and The Market Theatre, emphasising a shared commitment to preserving South African history through the performing arts, with added significance for The Market, which opened its doors on June 19 1976, three days after the Uprising began.

Reflecting on the importance of the partnership, Mashifane wa Noni says, "What drew me to joining this project was not only the opportunity to reflect on something 50 years later with the hindsight of today, but also the challenge of telling a story that almost every South African knows and finding ways to experience it anew.”

To Book:

Rise ’76: The Story of June 16 runs at the Baxter Studio until May 30 2026, before transferring to The Market Theatre’s Mannie Manim from 5 to June 28 2026. Book via Webtickets.