The Director Who Breaks Silence

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.