| What: Far Gone ย Where and when: Baxter Theatre, Cape Town, November 11โ15, 2025 Joburg Theatre, Johannesburg, November 19โ22, 2025 Writer/performer: John Rwothomack Director: Mojisola Kareem Producer: Roots Mbili Theatre Bookings: www.webtickets.co.zaย |
When he was eight, John Rwothomack was โnearly kidnappedโ in Uganda by the LRA (Lordโs Resistance Army). His play, Far Gone inspired by his experience, is touring South Africa. It is the first time that the play is being staged in South Africa and he it feels like he is bringing the story home โ to Africa. โThe story was always rooted on the continent, so in a way it feels like it finally has the audience it was meant for.โ Far Gone is on at the Baxter Theatre, Cape Town, November 11โ15, 2025 and the Joburg Theatre, Johannesburg, November 19โ22, 2025:
TheCapeRobyn: Is this the first time the play will be performed in South Africa?
John Rwothomack: Yes, this is the first time Far Gone will be performed in South Africa, which is incredibly meaningful for me. The first version of the show was staged in 2018 in the UK, then again in 2019. We had plans to tour more widely, but the pandemic stopped everything in its tracks. We picked things up again in 2022 with another UK tour. The only time the show has been performed on the African continent was a short festival appearance in Uganda in late 2019. So yes โ this is the first proper international tour and the first time audiences across Southern Africa will see the full production. It feels like bringing the story home in a way.
TCR: Can you tell us a bit about your story and background?
JR: The near-kidnap happened when I was eight, in Uganda, not far from where my family lived. That moment stayed with me my whole life, and eventually became the spark for Far Gone. I moved to the UK as a young adult to study, and Iโve been based in Sheffield ever since. Being a Black African artist in the UK is a mixed experience โ youโre grateful for the opportunities, but youโre also constantly aware of how easily your story gets misunderstood or flattened. Thatโs partly why I started writing and performing my own work. Sheffield has been kind to me though; itโs become a second home, and a place where Iโve been able to grow as an artist without losing connection to where I come from.
TCR: Have you shifted anything in the text for South African audiences?
JR: I havenโt rewritten the piece, but Iโve definitely adjusted the way I deliver certain moments. South African audiences sit much closer to the realities the play deals with โ politically, historically, emotionally. You donโt have to translate certain things here; people understand the undercurrents instinctively. In the UK, I often had to hold the audienceโs hand through some of the context because theyโre viewing it from the outside. Here, I can lean into the truth of it more confidently. The story was always rooted on the continent, so in a way it feels like it finally has the audience it was meant for.
TCR: Does performing the horror of the story allow you to transcend the pain? And how does Roots Mbili fit into this?
JR: Telling this story every night is emotionally hard, but thereโs a strange healing that happens when something painful is witnessed properly. Theatre gives shape to things we usually avoid looking at โ especially the idea of children being forced into war. People think because Africa is โcloser,โ weโre more used to these stories, but often itโs the opposite: we distance ourselves because it hurts too much. With Roots Mbili, our aim is to create a space where these truths can be held honestly, without sensationalism and without judgement. My play doesnโt offer easy hope โ itโs not a romance or a coming-of-age story โ but it does offer humanity. And for children whose stories were cut short, sometimes humanity is the only form of justice we can still give them.
TCR: Can you talk about how susceptible children are as soldiers?
JR: Yes, yes, of course. And scary is like the perfect word to use for this. Children, humans, become the result of the adults and the examples around them. There is nature and nurture. Yes, nature is there, there are personalities and all that. But really, itโs the nurture, itโs who is around you, the things you see, the culture you grow up in, the things you see that are acceptable. You start learning those things, and they inform what kind of person, what kind of character you become.
These children are being taken at a very crucial point, knowingly, by these grown men, at a point where theyโre still too young to fully understand what their moral compass is. Thatโs not fully formed yet. Theyโre young enough to not quite know that, but old enough to be strong enough to be trained. So physically they have some strength, but mentally their capacity can still be controlled. And thatโs when these abductions normally happen. Because if the teenagers are 16, 17, 18, thatโs much harder. But at 10, 11, 8, youโre still formingโฆ
โItโs very, very scary. Extremely scary. And organizations like these [like the LRA], only operate because children are not yet fully formed in terms of their psychological and moral identity. Thatโs not yet fully formed, but physically they are strong enough to be trained. This is where they come in, at that very crucial point in a childโs life, and they completely derail it and change itโฆ
โAnd I hope this is where art can come in and reflect whatโs happening and how ridiculous and stupid it actually is. I hope weโve done that. I really hope weโve created something that can reflect a mirror to the world, which I believe right now is quite an ugly place to be.โ
TCR: Insights into the design โ set, costume, lighting, sound?
JR: The design is intentionally stripped back. The set gives me space to shift between characters and memories quickly, almost like stepping into different rooms of the same past. The costume is simple but functional โ it allows the movement work to breathe. Lighting is a huge storyteller in this show; it shapes mood, time, and tension with very minimal elements. And the sound design carries the heartbeat of the piece โ the environment, the fear, the humour, the silences. Everything is designed to support the story without getting in the way of it.
TCR: Anything else to add?
JR: Only that Iโm incredibly grateful to be bringing this work to Southern Africa. Itโs not an easy story, but itโs an important one, and I hope audiences will meet it with openness. If the play starts conversations โ the uncomfortable kind, the necessary kind โ then thatโs all I can ask for.
โณ John Rwothomack who has written and performs in Far Gone, which is on its first international tour in South Africa, November 2025, Cape Town and Johannesburg. This interview has been marginally edited for length. Pic: Supplied.
