Written by Gail Louw, directed by Fiona Ramsay and starring Graham Hopkins, Albie Sachs: Fathers, Sons and Soft Vengeance comes to The Baxter Studio from 13 to 31 October 2026.
The play traces Sachs’ journey from joining the struggle against apartheid at the age of 17 through years of exile and the devastating car-bomb attack in Mozambique in 1988.
The attack, carried out by apartheid-era security forces, left Sachs without an arm and the sight in one eye. His recovery and the trauma that followed form an important part of the production, but the play also looks beyond the violence itself to the life Sachs continued to build afterwards.
That includes his work towards a democratic South Africa, his role as a constitutional architect and his continued commitment to human rights and justice.
At the heart of the play is Sachs’ idea of “soft vengeance”, the belief that creating a free, democratic and humane society based on human rights and justice can represent a victory over oppression.
Rather than seeking bitter retribution, the philosophy focuses on creating something fundamentally different from the system that caused the harm.
The production uses this idea to explore questions around forgiveness, healing and resilience, while considering what it means to continue believing in a better future after experiencing violence.
While Sachs’ political history provides the backdrop, Fathers, Sons and Soft Vengeance also turns its attention to his family life.
The play explores Sachs’ relationship with his own father, Solly Sachs, as well as his experience of becoming a father later in life to his youngest son, Oliver.
These relationships bring a more intimate perspective to a figure often remembered through the lens of South African political history.
On stage, Sachs becomes not only the activist and constitutional figure, but also a son, a father and a man reflecting on the experiences that have shaped him.
Director Fiona Ramsay says Sachs’ life offers a combination of personal and political material that lends itself to theatre.
“Staging a play on the life of Albie Sachs offers rich emotional and dramatic terrain,” says Ramsay. “His story is both epic and intimate – spanning resistance, loss, recovery and fatherhood.”
She says the production aims to explore not only what Sachs experienced and achieved, but also his moral vision, emotional resilience and idealism.
“Albie is an inspiring figure who overcame great odds and, with this play, the audience will leave not just with knowledge but feeling transformed by the experience,” she adds.
The Baxter season follows the production’s earlier run at Theatre on the Square in Sandton, where it received positive responses from audiences and theatre critics.
Barry Morrissee wrote that by the final moments of the production there was “not a dry eye in the house”, while The Something Guy described it as “a deeply moving piece of South African theatre” that was emotional, funny and powerful.
The production also brings together a creative team with previous connections to The Baxter.
Ramsay, a multi-award-winning director and performer, has appeared at the theatre in Blonde Poison, also written by Louw, as well as Janna Ramos-Violante’s The Opera Singer. She has previously worked with Hopkins on Twelfth Night, My Fair Lady and Hansard.
Hopkins takes on the role of Sachs in the production, with the story told through his voice and perspective.
The creative team includes Oliver Hauser on lighting design, Dean Pitman on sound design, James Dee on short arm, and set design by Ramsay and Hopkins.
Presented by Troupe Theatre Company and The Baxter Theatre, in association with Daphne Kuhn, the production brings biography, history and personal reflection together in a portrait of one of South Africa’s most significant figures.
For a figure whose life is so closely tied to South Africa’s political history, the production offers a more personal way into the story, one that considers not only the events that shaped Sachs, but the relationships, beliefs and resilience that carried him through them.
