CRITICAL ARTS comenrartsoraincsonvinmmnanoente and society at large. Both formal and informal channels are its interest. CRITICAL ARTS challenges the existing social structure. It is a cue for creating alternative dimensions to the stereotyped view of the media dictated by ideology. | CRITICAL ARTS A Journal for Cultural Studies Fe u 8, * Performance in South Africa Press and Broadcasting in Africa Steyn Commission/Breaker Morant 7 Subscriptions R7.00 (local) and $US 10 (overseas)for 4 issues Institutions (R4) ($4) extra Singleissues available at R2.50 each (local). Back copies R3,00 $3.54 Overseas. Foreign Purchases to be made by International Money Order Volume Two | 2 3 4 Cinemain the Third World Volume Three ! 2 English Studies in Transition 3 4 Aesthetics of Resistance Popular Culture and Performance in Africa Popular Memory/Cinema Volume Four Volume five gay . : eeee oat ee ponies of Method Fe eon of Popular Knowledge 3 ‘Black’ South African Peformance Revisited® 4 English Studies/Educational Interventions*®* “L 2, Cultural Studies: New Directions fo SA Research in the Arts and Medias Language and Struggle/Intellectual Interventions** In Press In Preparation ** A Journal for Media. Studies Write to CRITICAL ARTS, c/o Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit, University of Natal, King George V Ave, Durban 4001. South Africa phy suburban homes. Sarw : ae : (“The Sun etal and Allied ample. Beginning asa ised by a labour lawyer with a rs who had been dismissed foran al- eiilegalstrike, and later developed by members of ¢ Junction Avenue Theatre Company, /éamge was d before audiences in such a way as to invite ucipation. The actors on stage (some of whom \ CONTENTS EDITORIAL by Ian Steadman ARTICLES Dialectics of Tradition in Southern African Black Popular Theatre _.. David Coplan Vuka: Sharing the Image ... Myra Davis Class, Race and Oppression: Metaphor and Metonymyin ‘Black’ South African Theatre ... Keyan G Tomaselli and Johan Muller Classic Fairy Tales: The Coming ofAge ofLittle Red Riding Hood ... Lindy Stiebel REVIEWS Black Theatre, Dance and Ritual in South Africa by Peter Larlam Reviewed by Stephen Carr What is Communication? by Marthinus Van Schoor Reviewed by Eric Louw Bessie Head: A Bibliography by Susan Gardnerand Patricia E Scott Reviewed by M J Daymond Vol 4.No 3 1987 29 40 GH 70 poe ' ————— f Cover design by Nicholaas Vergunst. Text artwork and design by P Eric Louw and Alex Holt. CRITICAL ARTS EDITOR Keyan G Tomaselli Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit, University of Natal. : ASSOCIATE EDITORS Susan Gardner Dept ofEnglish, University of Durban-Westville Johan Muller Dept of Education, Witwatersrand University Ian Steadman School ofDramatic Art, Witwatersrand University Ruth Tomaselli Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit University of Natal EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS: Eve Bertelsen Dept of English, University af Cape Tawn David Coplan CHIC Programme, State University of New York Tim Couzens African Studies Institute, Witwatersrand University Harriet Gavshon Freelance Film Maker Trish Gibbon Dept of English, University of Durban-Westville Tom Guback Institute of Communication Research University of Hlinois Richard Haines Dent ept of Politics and Development Politi / , Administration, University of South Africa Temple Hauptfleisch Centre for SA Theatre, HSRC Graham Hayman Dept of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University Peter Horn . Dept af German, University of Cape Town Wilhelm Liebenberg Dept ofAfrikaans, University of Witwatersrand : ' Ntongela Masilela Dept of Communication Technical University of Berlin David Maughan Brown Dept af English, University of Natal Nhlanhla Ngcobo, KwaZulu Education Department Njabulo Ndebele Dept ofEnglish, University of Lesotho Don Pinnock Dept ofJournalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University Robert Stam Dept of Cinema Studies, New York University Clifford Shearing Institute of Criminology, Toronto University - Les Switzer Dept of Communication, University of Houston Advertising Manager Alex Holt Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit University of Natal ; * Eromactlon Esitor Eric Louw : Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit, University of Natal : Administrative Assistants Ansuya Chetty Craig Doria Contemporary Cultural Studies Unit, University of Natal Published by: Critical Arts Projects of the Universities of Natal, Rhodes and the Witwatersrand. Typeset by University of Natal Printed by the Multicopy Centre University of Natal, King George V Ave, Durban Copyright is vested with the Editors and individual authors ISSN 0254-0046 Critical Arts is published twice a year. Articles are indexed in Film Literature Index, Communications Abstracts, InternationalBibliography of Theatre, MLA International Bibliography, IMMRC the Centre for South African Theatre, Sociological Abstracts and Social Planning/Policy and Development Abstracts. _ A Journalfor Cultural Studies S e Critical Arts Vol 4 No 3 1987 CRITICAL ARTS : CHANGE OF NAME EDITORAL by Ian Steadman . e P In the context of the currentpolitical struggle in South Africa, significant new directions have emerged in the developmentoftheatre as an elementin cultural resistance. Tom Lodge,in the Preface to his book Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945', says that while his work is about black political resistance, there is a further story to be told about other kinds of resistance. The theatre in South Africa tells such a story. Work has already been undertaken in this field in relation to music? andin relation to theatre in the 1970s.? Critical Arts deployed a few arguments in the field in 1981.* Those arguments, collected in an issue entitled ‘Alternative Performance”, generated considerable debate about terminology. The presentissue seeks to update the discussion. Central to the debate is the notion of ‘black’ theatre. It is fashionable in South Africa to accuse social commentatorsofa class-negating ethnic organicism in the use of the word ‘black’. Thereis, of course, an unacceptable reductionism in the word, and it often inscribes gross ideological prescription. Nevertheless, in the beliefthat the notionof ‘black’ theatre incorporates important aspectsofthe socialist-nationalist dichotomy which lies at the heart of current political struggle and resistance in South Africa, this issue makes deliberate use of the ‘term in order to subpoena some important concepts into the debate. Sinceits first edition in May 1980, Critical Arts has been served by the sub-title “A Journal for Media Studies’’. This wasthetitle of sixteen issues in the series and two monographs (the latter discontinued in 1984), most of which covered directly media-related topics like cinema, drama and performance, press, censorship, literature, visual anthropology, broadcasting and so on. As the Journal developed, however,'it moved away from purely textual discussion and opened up a space for contextual analysis, the social, economic andpolitical conditions out of which media, mediainstitutions and textsarise. This shift brought the Journal into contact with disciplines which study contexts, namely sociology, anthropology, politiés and, of course, cultural studies. Critical Arts has for some time been concerned with the relationship between texts and contexts. It is this emphasis that has resulted in the examinationof a much widerarea of analysis extending into education, class struggle, political economy, ideology and applicationsof social theory in general. Forthis reason, catalysed by the acceptance by English-language universities in South Africa and elsewhere of cultural studies, we have decided to change the nameof the journalto Critical Arts: A Journal for Cultural'Studies. This changeintitle signals the continuationofa theoretical trend that has become dominantsince ourearly issues seven years ago. The Editors During the 1970s the notion of‘black’ theatre invoked the cultural platform of Black Consciousness in its formative phase. Despite paying insufficient attention to class and ideologicalfactorsin its analysis of white domination and exploitation, despite its origins as an elitest movement, and despite an inadequate assessment of the role of black workers in resistance, the Black Consciousness movementposited a cultural alternative to white hegemony. Within this alternative, black, consciousness, black theatre practitioners were able to create works which radically affected the notionoftheatre’s function in resistance. Dramatic sketches, plays and performed poetry proliferated in the years leading up to Soweto 1976. Symbolizing the role of black theatre during this period, the 1974 Treason Trial boasted two black theatre groups amongst the five organizations brought to trial for subversive activities.° These developments took place during an era when political and cultural Se please tum to p 2a Critical Arts Vol 4 No 3 1987 1 Critical Arts Vol 4 no 3 1987 liberation were conceived in populist form. By the end of the 1970s such a conception was already being overtaken by more sophisticated political analyses. The obvious merit in such a change should not, however, blind us to an element ofloss: to what extenthasthe effectiveness of black theatre been diluted by a shift in emphasis away from an ideological base of race and nationalism? It can be argued that in the 1970s Black Consciousness sponsored a truly emergent theatre. Radically debunking tendencies in cultural expression which were associated with white norms and standards, black artists responded to the Black Consciousness programme ofcreating works which were innovative expressions of ‘black experience’. Despite the idealism of such a project, and despite an inherent elitism in most of the works presented under the guise of ‘popular’ entertainment, black theatre during this period helped to mould the ideals of Black Consciousness. After 1976 much of the work in black theatre occurred in non-racial collaborations.* The pre-1976 phase of work was then subjected to rigorous critique and shownto have been the productofa deficient social analysis based on race to the exclusionofclass. Academic commentary in the 1980s has been based prominently on sucha critique. It is too easy for social scientists, in demystifying the relations of exploitation which were for so long obfuscated by the race issue, to promote anotherkind of mystificationby trivialising the race issue: the history ofcapitalist penetrationin South Africa occurred in such a way as to preserve ‘blackness’ as a source of commonality even in the face ofproletarianisation. Biko satirised the tendency to trivialise the race issuein favour of more progressive analyses thus: ‘, .. it is still other whites who wantto tell us how to deal with that problem. They do so by dragging all sorts of red herrings across our paths. Theytell us that the situation is a class struggle rather thana racial one. Let them go to van Tonderin the Free State and tell him this.’ It is not the intention to sanction, in this argument, thehistorical divisionof the working class in South Africa by what might appear to be a retrogressive emphasis on race. Nevertheless,it is a fact that adequate cultural analysis must take cognisance of the crucial relationship between race and class in South African theatre. While I am consciousthatthetitle of the present collection of essays might be seen in some wayto perpetuate old arguments,I believe that there is much to be gained bya critical study of black theatre precisely because such a study will reveal what one commentator has called “the crucial conjunctures of race, class and nationalism” in South African culture.® Asscholarsin the socialsciences begin to understand the motive forces in South 2 Critical Arts Vol 4 No 3 1987 African society, it becomes increasingly necessary to understand the ways in which different groups in the country developed cultural responses and how these cultural responsesfertilised race- and class-consciousness. While thetitle of this issue could attract criticism because it emphasises divisions rather than relations, it can be arguedthatit is precisely because we have knownsolittle aboutblack cultural history that we need to emphasise in the way this volume sets out to do, In 1981 Critical Arts’s special issue on “Alternative Performance” focused ondifferent aspectsof ‘black’ theatre. The Editor pointedto the paucity of workin the field and suggested that the gaps in the recorded history of South African threatre necessitated work not only empirically but theoretically as well. The issue therefore contained two essays to that end. VeVe Clark’s essay on “The Archaeology of Black Theatre” and Keyan Tomaselli’s essay on ‘The Semiotics of Alternative Theatre” complemented both Stephen Gray’s carefully researched essay on Stephen Black’s drama and a selected bibliography of PerformanceResearch.In this issue, Myra Davis and David Coplan present two views from beyond our borders. Davis presents a case history of one ‘black’ South African play in performancein Britain. Coplanoffers a perspective on the dialectics of tradition in contemporary black theatre in South Africa. The two essays introduce the reader not only to specific texts and personalities, but to aspects ofthe current debate about form and function in South Africantheatre, Kenyan Tomaselli and Joe Muller,in a joint essay, grapple with salient features of a debate which exemplifies the attempt of Critical Arts to offer a radical critique not only of South African culture, but also of studies of that culture. Their essay is likely to promptfurthercritique. Ifthe notion of‘black’ theatreis seen, finally, to have been a product of the way in which South African society has beenstructured, it will be possible to argue that it played an importantrole in cultural resistance and struggle. Ifwe can say ‘nothing more aboutthe concept than what Maishe Maponyasays,wewill still be describing its role with some accuracy. Hesays: “*.. as long as blacks do not have equalrights there’ll always be black theatre..." NOTES 1 2 eeeduf Township Tonight! South Africa's Black City Music and Theatre. Johannesburg: - Lodge.T. Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945. Johannesburg : Ravan, 1983. avan, ; 3 4 5 6 J ~ o o O s Kavanagh, R. Theatre and Cultural Struggle in South Africa. London : Verso, 1985. Steadman,I. (ed) “Altermative Performance”, Critical Arts 2 (1) 1981, Johannesburg. : See Attorney-General’s Report and ChargeSheet, 1975, National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown. Some groups, of course — and notably Workshop ‘71 — had worked collaboratively throughout the 1970s. Biko, S. J Write What I Like, ed. A Stubbs. London: Heinemann, pp89-90. Kavanagh,op cit, preface. Maishe Maponya,Interview in The Sunday Posr, 4th July 1980. , aaaa a a Critical Arts Vol 4 No 3 1987 3