New South African Plays

A collection of six plays dealing with the new South Africa, published in 2006 to celebrate 10 years of democracy post-apartheid. Plays about racial conflict, the impact of AIDS, power and corruption, the legacy of the past and female identity. Reprinted 2012, 2019. The Plays The Playground by Beverly Naidoo “...it floats on a haunting, echoing raft of traditional South African harmonies that make watching it a joyful experience as well as a thought-provoking one...” Time Out Critics’ Choice – Pick of the Year Taxi by Sibusiso Mamba: Edinburgh fringe first winner “a superbly written and produced play... A fine piece of work that’s refreshingly free of cliches.” Daily Mail, Pick of the Week Green Man Flashing by Mike Van Graan “...This finely crafted drama tears at the heart and soul of our democracy, and rips at the underbelly of corruption and political power through its astute writing...” Star Tonight Rejoice by James Whylie “... the cruellest irony of all is left until the end... the same one which has spelled the death of Rejoice... And millions more.” Friends of BBC Radio 3 What the Water Gave Me by Rehane Abrahams “tales that retrieve ancient magics and reveal contemporary terrors...” Cape Times To House by Ashwin Singh: Finalist in the 2003 PANSA (Performing Arts Network of SA) Festival of Reading of New Writing (the country’s foremost playwriting contest) “To House is an important piece of theatre; in it people voice opinions that are uncomfortable and edgy. The cathartic and therapeutic value of hearing these things said aloud in a public place is part of our essential healing process and proves, once again, that art has the ability to go where angels fear to tread.” Daily News, Durban

"... a solid addition to international drama." --Library Journal Going beyond the parameters of conventional literary drama, these seven new plays express life issues in post-apartheid South Africa--Islamic fundamentalism, women's rights, ecology, Afrikaans culture and the new multi-racial life of the inner city. While theater rooted in the anti-apartheid movement was rich and vibrant, it was also singleminded in focus, obscuring the diversity of South African culture now brought to life in these works.

Chronicles the development of dramatic writing and performance from the time South Africa was established to post-apartheid. Investigates the impact of sketches and manifestos, and the oral preservation of scripts that could not be written.

After the end of Apartheid, South African theatre was characterized by a remarkable process of constant aesthetic reinvention. This multivocal volume documents some of the various ways in which the “rainbow” nation has forged these innovative stage idioms.

Featuers the four plays - ""Reach"", ""Some Mother's Sons"", ""Shwele Bawo!!"", and ""Dream of the Dog"" - that explore the themes such as reconciliation, matriarchy, justice, accountability, corruption, truth, memory, and violence which reflect on the challenges and questions South Africans are confronted with in their nascent democratic state.

This is the first anthology to focus exclusively on the lives of Black South African women. This collection represents the work of both female and male writers, including national and international award-winning playwrights. The collection includes six full-length and four one-act plays, as well as interviews with the writers, who candidly discuss the theatrical and political situation in the new South Africa. Written before and after apartheid, the plays present varying approaches and theatrical styles from solo performances to collective creations. The plays dramatise issues as diverse as: * women's rights * displacement from home * violence against women * the struggle to keep families together * racial identity * education in the old and new South Africa * and health care.

First Published in 1997. Can South African theatre continue to maintain its autonomy and exercise its critical role? Can one rethink form and find new content? Can a concept of post-protest theatre be developed? How might theatre contribute to post-apartheid soceity? These are just of the questions addressed in this book. The real and present difficulties South Africian theatre is facing, as well as possible future orientations, are clearly shown, at one of the most complex moments of political transition in the history of the South African society. The authors include contributions from playwrights, actors, visual artists, poets, directors, administrators, critics and theatre academics. Their comments and thoughts portray the active process of reflection and reappraisal, redefining their artistic and political aims, searching for new and vital theatrical forms.

'What lies beneath the apparent simplicity of Kunene and the King is a lot of moral, political and existential depth. This is testimony to the brilliance of John Kani.' – EUSEBIUS McKAISER South Africa, 2019. Twenty-five years since the first post-apartheid democratic elections. Jack Morris is a celebrated classical actor who has just been given a career-defining role and a life-changing diagnosis. Lunga Kunene is a retired senior male nurse from Soweto now working for private patients. Besides their age, they appear not to have much in common. But a shared passion for Shakespeare soon ignites a 'rich, raw and shattering head-to-head' (The Times) as the duet from contrasting walks of life unpack the racial, political and social complexities of modern South Africa. Kunene and the King is a vital play that combines the magnificence of classic Shakespearean comedy, tragedy and history to reflect on a new yet deeply wounded society.

“Theatre is not part of our vocabulary”: Sipho Sepamla's provocation in 1981, the year of famous anti-apartheid play Woza Albert!, prompts the response, yes indeed, it is. A Century of South African Theatre demonstrates the impact of theatre and other performances-pageants, concerts, sketches, workshops, and performance art-over the last hundred years. Its coverage includes African responses to pro-British pageants celebrating white Union in 1910, such as the Emancipation Centenary of the abolition of British colonial slavery in 1934 organized by Griffiths Motsieloa and HIE Dhlomo, through anti-apartheid testimonial theatre by Athol Fugard, Maishe Maponya, Gcina Mhlophe, and many others, right up to the present dramatization of state capture, inequality and state violence in today's unevenly democratic society, where government has promised much but delivered little. Building on Loren Kruger's personal observations of forty years as well as her published research, A Century of South African Theatre provides theoretical coordinates from institution to public sphere to syncretism in performance in order to highlight South Africa's changing engagement with the world from the days of Empire, through the apartheid era to the multi-lateral and multi-lingual networks of the 21st century. The final chapters use the Constitution's injunction to improve wellbeing as a prompt to examine the dramaturgy of new problems, especially AIDS and domestic violence, as well as the better known performances in and around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Kruger critically evaluates internationally known theatre makers, including the signature collaborations between animator/designer William Kentridge, and Handspring Puppet Company, and highlights the local and transnational impact of major post-apartheid companies such as Magnet Theatre.