Yaël Farber grew up in South Africa during Apartheid, an era when the
country’s white minority government racially segregated and brutalized Black South
Africans. Farber, a white woman, said the cognitive dissonance she experienced
“turned into a clarity and a rage.”
Today, she’s one of the world’s more respected stage directors and playwrights.
She’s responsible for a number of acclaimed revivals (including Hamlet and The
Crucible) as well as original plays documenting oppression during the Apartheid era.
She also wrote and directed a shattering production called Nirbhaya, based on the
true story of a violent gang rape in India in 2012.
Farber tells Art of Power host Aarti Shahani about why she chose theater as a way to
shine light on injustice. An empath and a truth-teller, Farber understands something
a lot of us want to understand: how to get people to care.
A warning: this episode contains an explicit description of rape and is not suitable
for younger listeners.
