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.