CRITICAL RESPONSES TO
CONTEMPORARY SOUTH
AFRICAN THEATRE

Ian Steadman

In a personal interview, 'the Chairman of the Corrmission (of enquiry
into the Performing Arts, August 1977) was told by the Secretary for
Bantu Administration
and development that that Government Department
assumed full responsibility for any matter in connection with the
performing arts, so far as black people were affected.
He had been
asked about this in the interests of those Black inhabitants who
are living in the country's White residential areas.
Having been
given the assurance that any needs which might exist or arise
received or would receive the direct attention of that Department,
the Commission devoted no further attention to this population
group in its inquiry .•.
The Re ort of the Corrmission of En uir
ugust

into the Performin

,aragrap

Arts:

It cannot be.

What
It surely cannot be defined strictly in terms
as theatre created or performed in South Africa, for that den1es

On,lst June, 1980, a symposium was convened at the Moravian Hall in Soweto.
Th1S was a meeting of people interested in the future of South African
In this case the focus of interest was black theatre in South
theatre.
Africa, but the issues raised at the meeting served to elucidate areas of
~arger concern.
The most pertinent question raised was : "Exactly wh~t
~s black theatre?"
.The implication was (and Jean Genet might have sa1d
1t) : "First of all, what is its colour?"
~e are confronted, in this terrain, by the problem of delineation.
1S South African theatre?
of lanauage, for much of this theatre is multi-lingual.
def1ne
the contribution of a host of exiled South Africans.
defined exclusively in terms of theatre about South Africa:
Beckett's.Waiting for Godot is not 'abou~eland.
I could suggest many more delineating criteria(l), but I have already
loaded the dice sufficiently for the purposes of this paper. The above
~re representative critical ~rescriptions regarding the na~ure.of theatre
1n South Africa.
The truth 1S that a concept of South Afr1can1sm ca~not
be defined exclusively in any of the above terms. ~
~o~k created 1n or
.!?l::. or about South Africans or with reference to any 1nd1v1duaJ shapeaby
a SoutiiA1'rican sensibility must qualify for inclusion in our consideration.
Furthermore, what of theatre itself?
Is there, in audience parlance
during the interval
"Interesting, but it's not really theatre:" 1 In short, prescri~tive
critical attitudes to Couth African theatre are the foes w1th Wh1Ch 1
choose to do battle in tbis paper.
If I ignore Afrika~ns the~tre and.
corrmercial theatre, and barely refer to white theatre 1n Engl1sh, it 1S
because w~ concerns are not so much with actual works for the theatre,
as with critical attitudes to those works.
A focus on black theatre
in English best exemplifies the points I have to make.

utterance than the statement:

It cannot be
Samuel

~evasive

40

There are 3 major categories of prescriptive attitudes regarding contemporary
South African theatre.

These embrace the areas of

A
B
C

the subject matter of theatre
critical pre-conceptions
text and performance

(2)

there are some who, ignorant of Brecht's

This challenge is of such
With the emergence of multifarious innovations in theatre,
In order to

Few can doubt that the present is an exciting period for South African theatre.
This excitement is stimulated because the forms, styles. techniques and
conventions of performance are being challenged.
a volatile nature that criticism has to react DESCRIPTIVELY rather than
PRESCRIPTIVELY.
our critical tools and our critical attitudes must be prepared to grow and
be sharpened by the artefacts upon which we bring them to bear.
accomplish this, we must re-assess our prescribed critical assumptions.
PKESCRIPTIVE ATTITUDES TO SOUTH AFRICAN THlATRE
THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THEATRE
In South African theatre at the present time, social relevance becomes a
~larion call.
Anythin~ of social relevance is important, of course, but
,f Our task is crltlcal y to evaluate theatre, we must be as wary of praising
social relevance which is defective theatre, as we are of praising effective
theatre of dubious relevance.
The whole notion Of relevance is questionable,
of course, and is inextricable from a consideration Of ,deological
implications.
Nevertheless,
redefinition of 'entertainment', react against the cancerous intrusion of
serious thought into their entertainment.
Literature and theatre of a polemical nature tend, in South Africa, to
provoke suspicion.
In many cases. 'polemical' has come to mean 'political'.
For many critics and patrons of South African theatre, serious subject matter
'reduces' theatre to statement or manifesto.
It is unfortunate that such
critics do not continually expose themselves to contemporary indigenous
theatre.
If they were to do this - and permits to visit theatre in Soweto
are easily accessible - they would discover, to quantify a distinction, that
most new contemporary South African theatre is black.
They would then make
another important discovery:
by the very nature of black experience in South Africa. political.
Lurking behind suspicions of political subject matter in theatre, lies the
notlon that "art is above politics".
It is a notion that ~omfo~ts those
who wish to preserve the status quo.
It is a notion that lS reJected by those
oppressed by the status quo. to those whose everyday lives are ~otall~
determIned by politics.
A glance at the attitudes of black wr1ters 1n
Africa today elucidates this. (4)
Within the area of subject matter. therefore. the major critical pres~ription
seems to be
: separate theatre from polit1CS•. This.is an extra?rd1nary
attitude when one considers that politics. espec1ally 1n South Afnca.
permeates every capillary of social life. It is also an attitude that fails
~rama and
to understand the very nature of theatre throughout history.
theatre are fertilised in space and time, and a full understand1ng ?f the
In South AfrIca.
art must take cognisance of the context of that art.
context is a determinant of subject matter in serious theatre.
This is not to denigrate that critical attitude which ~ondemns petty
proselytism and defective theatre
: it is the rejectIon per ~e of
political subject matter with which I do battle.
should avoid didacticism is one which should be re-ex~mlned.
theatre
Brechtian theatre this should be ObV10US.(5)
a generation schooled in

that the fabric or-stack theatre is often.

Even the no l?n that T

0

(3)

41

The single most important factor to be learnt by those who wish to separate
art and politics is that in Africa, political nationalism has congruency with
The theatre should not be separated from the social
cultural nationalism.
and p~litical soil .in which it is fertilised.
Black theatre especially, has
a subJect matter d1ctated by context.
Plays written for black audiences in
the closest thing we have ever had to a popular theatre,
South Africa,.creating
Sartre has said:
must necessar11y be about the conditions of black existence.

"For a people's audience the first thing you have to do is
to produce its own plays - plays written for it and speaking
to it."

(6)

Granted.

42

that of an appr~hr~ate

a

theatre but no theatres.

Were it not for the occasional lights such as Fug~rd and a handful of
serious craftsmen in white theatre, 1 should be tempted to suggest that
in white South Africa there are theatres but no theatre, whereas in black
South Africa there is
That theatre springs
directly from subject matter.
CRITICAL PRE-CONCEPTIONS
I am concerned here with a difficult problem:
cr1tical methodology when looking at South African theatre.
statement is itself prescriptive, but at least it will allow me, if not
to define the correct critical procedure. at least to outline what should be
avoided in a critical approach to contemporary South African theatre.
I
cannot, in this paper, solve the problem, but merely contribute towards an
answer.
The first (and well-trodden) field is provided by the statement: do not
impose western criteria upon Third ~/orldcriticism.
I am not sure what
.western" really means in this context.
For some, it may refer to whi~p
South Africans while excluding black South Africans.
Frequently. it implies
an aversion to things European.
The latter assumption, unfortunately,
implies that the critic of African theatre and literature is forbidden to
use all the equipment whiCh has been Sharpened and practised upon the great
works of the Hellenic-Renaissance-Modernist
a tradition which
permeates the lives and cultures of peo~le not only in the west but globally.
Any sensible critic, schooled in this tradition. will in any case be aware
of the need to take cognizance of time and place. of world-views, of the
Is it
unique socia-cultural context of the work under consideration.
conceivable. for example, that we can offer instruction in Shakespearean
drama without reference to tne mediaeval heritage of English
literature, the concept of the Great Chain of Being~ the co~fr?n~atio~
of mediaeval authoritarian conventionalism and Renalssance 1nd1vldual1sm,
the Elizabethan political dispensation?
In short, what we are talking
a~out here is a sense of hiS~Ory in our critical attitudes, a sense of
t1me and ~~a~e and impo~t.
et us dispense with the notlon that the
Great Tra 1t1on has not ing to do with the Third World.
Of course we
need to change the lenses of our spectacles when we look at tne new
phenomenon.
.
comparative literature. let us keep the spectacl~s. T.S. Ellot has ~a~d
it for us ; the new individual talents in the Th1rd World often fertl11se the
traoition and at the same time receive nourishment from it.
some of the new talents are totally unique, witnout external influenc~..
All the same, compari~'ns are not odious, bu~towards
the obJectlv1ty
which is the product of all comparative
Surel~ no-one can
literature.
suggest that criticism of indigenous theatre is the.prerogat1ve of
'indigenous' critics?
.
Sowetans should criticize Sowetan theatre. or that only the Anthropophag1
could verify Othello's anecdotes.

1
It is a short step from thiS to say that on Y

But for the sake of objectivity, for the sake of

tradition:

It is often a bitter depiction.

The form is secondary.
For

theatre a ~ertain form, Plot or technique based on alien tra 1tions

Criticism is at its weakest if it is meretricious, and if it fails to
re-focus when discussing African literature and theatre.
To expe~~
from
(however ~oble) 1S to deflower the art of criticism at the outset.
For
example. 1f th~re is one s~gnificant factor about serious contemporary
black theatre 1n S~uth Afr1ca that strikes me. it is this : form nearly
always follows subJect matter rather than dictating it.
Because of the
nat~re of black experience in South Africa, serious theatre sets out to
dep1c~ aspects o~ that experience.
somet1mes sardon1c - but the intention is always to illuminate the
conditions of black social and political life.
The notion of "organic form" does not even come into consideration
critics to expect elements of formal composition is fatuous. (71.'
this is where the notion of a dichotomy formulated in western 1third
A proper approach to the subject seems to me to
worTd terms is valid.
lie in the Lukacsian category of Critical Realism, where serious black
theatre directs its energies towards depictino tne life of the black man
within specific socio-economic contexts.
order to speak to a broad-based working class audience.
What we are discussing here is clearly a matter of contextualism in
Failure to place the artefact under consideration within
criticism.
its contextual determinants. leaves the critic open to attack.
c Ayi
Kwei Armah has maae such an attack upon the American critic Charles
Larson.
In an article which must rank as one of the most savage
demolitions ever perpetrated on a critic. Armah systematically destroys
the credibility of Larson as a critic of African literature. pointing to
what are some of the common prejudices of the western critic of African
art.
But what is more important for my purposes is revealed by Armah's
own attitude:
In the article.
entitled "Larsony - or fiction as critic1sm of f1ction". Armah says

the fact of prejudice on both sides.

using a realistic ~ode in

"the western critic of African literature does not operate
from a plain and logical framework.
received framework of Western values and prejudices."

He operates from a

(8)

In Africa many factors fertil1se

A theory of culture is 1nsuff1clent - we must look at the

Now. certainly the western critic. like any other critic, operates from
a received framework of prejudices.
But it is wha~ ~s made of those
prejudices that determines our evaluation of the cr1t1c.---rO imply. as
Armah does. that the African experience has nothin~ to do with toe.western
tradition. is provincial think1ng.
the indigenous experience.
In South African theatre•.specifi~ally. there
are many traditions operative - tribal. European. Engl1sh. Afr1kaans. oral.
literary _ expressing cultural differen~es bu~ ~evertheless deriving from the
same society.
unique circumstances which inform the culture. before we evaluate the
individual work.
TEXT AND PERFORMANCE
In much of the new theatre we are confronted by a ~erformance rat~~r than a
We are in an era of the playwright as chie maker.rather
text.
an
The spelling of the word 'playwright' is suffiC1ent to rem~na
writer.
us that in theatre, materials are w~ouTht for performance. not mere ~
written
In black theatre particu ar Y we are confronted by an 1ma~
~:
To expect literariness 1n
o
isolation 1s to misunderstand the phenomenon.

rea 1ty rather than an 1m1tat1on 0

f' t

(9)

..

1 •

43

In EgO~i by Hatsemela

The response of

a

While the audience winces. each hammers at

.
Indeed, where black theatre is weakest.
than

Black theatre is working in new forms and conventions, where the image
Anyone responsive to the creative processes
seems to be a central focus.
at work in black theatre will see the importance of the image.
The image
is a central idea sensuously manifested, and the juxtaposition of images
is often the central dynamis in black theatre.
Manaka. a play recently invited to West Germany after
ukewarm response
In South Africa (do we always need the international market to
'
recognize our work before we deign to 7) there occurs one of the most
Two convicts are bound together by chains. each with
startling images.
• steel band around his neck.
the other's steel band with a rock.
They eventually free one another.
The danger to the actors (hitting at the neck with a rock), the groans
accompanying the action. the sound of rock on metal, and the suspense of
the audience work theatrically to sustain the metaphor which resounds
with implication.
critic 7 - "another unoriginal
letaphor".
(\0)
The notion of eerformance is essential to a proper understanding of
black theatre ln South Africa.
in my opinion, is when it slips into an uncomfortable literariness anG the
audience becomes conscious of a dialogue which is written rather
~poten.
The conscious attempt to create more sophistlcated verbiage 1s no
ou t the product of a desire to achieve publication and further
recognition. but is often disconcert1ng to the ear in thr theatre.
This
factor. slight as it may seem. merely exemplifies my belief that black
theatre rests more firmly on images in performance than on words on a
page.-
These three factors. then. constitute the major categories of prescribed
critical attitudes which we bring to the theatre in South Africa.
In
conclusion. it is necessary to outline a proposal for approaching the new
phenomena in our theatres, by way of : -
DESCRIPTIVE
The Re ort of the Commission of En uir
into the Performin
ugus
ac s w lC mlg
umlnatlng
sprlngboard for re-assessing our attitudes to theatre.
reference of the report seem, initially, sound enough :-

serve as a
The terms of
.To enquire into and make recommendations on the general poliCY
to be pursued with a view to the sound development of the
-performing arts as an tmportant JIIeJInsf"or.till', cv~.wraI enriclvnent
Qt. the pQp.lllationof SQlJth Africa ••.•
However, the true intentions of the Report are revealed in one of the
tel"lllS of reference :-
••••the extent to wh1Ch justice is done to the official lao~uages
and the cultural needs of the two language grouPs concerned

ATTITUDES TO SOUTH AFRICAN TWEATRE

Arts:

(.Yelllphasis).
The fact is that official policy and general atti~udes ~eem to deo~ the
This susp1cion 1S conflnre this
role of black theatre in our society.
in Paragraph 425 of the Report, with which th~s p~per begins'f rm~ng arts
Simple. short paragraph, a commission of enqU1ry 10to th~ perf~ort in the
cuts out of its field of enquiry the major part of creatlve e
performing arts in this country.

44

Faced with such evidence
of official policy towards contemporary theatre,
how can we then propose an attitude which recognizes quality and evaluates
I can
with Objectivity the new theatre emerging on our doorstep?
A DESCRIPTIVE
merely contribute towards an answer in this paper.
It will perceive how
attitu4e will start in the context of production.
the environment conditions us. and will perceive the capacity of theatre
to illuminate our understanding of that process.
It will look at the
present as history:
perceiving cause and effect, perceiving the motive
forces in our very unique society.
Who can look at black theatre after
1976 in the same way as he looks at black theatre prior to that date 1 (11)
I 00 not wish to re-open the debate between the rival merits of
explicatory criticism and contextual criticism, nor would I suggest
that theatre is reducible to subject matter or ideology.
we must see theatre as informin~ and bein~ informed byan'ideological
view.
When we look at theatre ln South A rlca durlng the 1980's, we
will also have to look at the phenomenon which has taken upon itself the
umbrella term of 81ack Consciousness.
Black Consciousness will be one of
Our critical attitudes will
the determinants of theatre in the 1980's.
have to describe the role that such determinants will play in theatre,
and then proceed to evaluate within that framework.
As critics leading
the consensus of popular appreciation nearer towards the consensus of
qualified appreciation, we must exhibit all the uneasiness. trepidation
and interest of objective South Africans in the 1980's.
Otherwise we
are inept scholars and critics, resting in armchairs, staring at our
navels, turning psychically into foetal positions.

Nevertheless,

NOTES AND REFERtNCES

1)

2)

-

It seems that anyone delving into the area is troubled by the problem
of definition.
a) Greig, R.

See. for example:
"Three stages of South African dram~ : tour1st,
settler, inhabitant", The Star (Tonlght)
December 23, 1978.
Spro- as
avan,
and DilellV1las"

b) Gordimer, N. :"The 81ack Inter reters : Notes on African Writin
..
Problems
c) Sepamla, 5.: "The Black I1riterin South Afnca

9 3,
New Classic 3, 1976, Page 18.
In The Star (Tonight) supplement of 28 th May, 1980, there is an
interest1ng article in this regard:

Today:

age

.

"

the

"Henk Hugo has been awarded the Afri~aan~ Taal-en-Kultuurvereeniging',
cash prize for his television product10~
Hammer Assebllef,
second series of which is currently be1ng show~.
It was
judged the television programme that had contr~buted most to
Afrikaans culture during the past year.
Mr V1ctor Horne,
executive director of the ATKV, announced the, award i~ t'
He explained that because of 1ts unpre ~n.~ous _
Johannesburg.
the comedy series had been met with gre~t a~~ro~al ~1g~tr~n~ans
'Mr Hugo succeeded 1n 0
speaking viewers
•
healthy entertai~ent
without creating pseudo-abst~usel~~~~enf~ '
Mr Horne said.
was an excellent depiction of the everyday sltuat10n 1n In A r
home and in pliant Afrikaans."
The notion "pseudo-abs truse curren~s" defie~ ~e!inqi~~~~'p~~~alent.
exemplifies an attitude to entertalnment Wh1C

'As a contribution to the n~t1on~ c~

'f iklner

ness

enng

1S

'

45

See. for example. Raphaely, R.

be seen" in The Star (Tonight) 27/12/79.
See. for example. Mzamane. M. 1978 :"Literature and pOlitics among blacks in

: "Polemical. yes. but this deserves to

South Africa"
especially Page 56 :

Black South African literature therefore
Its

New Classic 5,
"The bourgeois concept of culture as entertainment has been
swept aSlde in South Africa.
The concept of art for art's
sake is dead.
addresses itself to the problems of that country.
peculiarity actually reflects the peculiarity of the system
in that country.
to be shrill and hysterical, it is the situation really that
is perverse.
At any rate, it is ridiculous to expect sweet
Hande1ian music from the oppressed, unless the oppressed
acquiesce to sing like the slaves of old, for their master's
gratification. "
"The black writer in South Africa today:
problems and dl1emmas" in New Classic 3.

If the poetry, for instance, would seem

and

Sepam1a, S. 1976

IS) I:lrecht,B. 1936

"The German Drama:

Left Review, London.

Pre-Hitler" published in
"With the learning-play, then, the stage begins to be
(A word of which I, as a man of many years of
didactic.
experience in the theatre, am not afraid).
The theatre
becomes a place for philosophers. and for such pnilosophers
as not only wish to explain the world but wish to change
it••.For theatre remains theatre even while it is didactic.
and as long as it is good theatre it is also entertaining."

Th~atre Popu1aire no. 15.

1955

6) Sartre, J-P.
7) Raphaely. R. E£. ill.
8) Nek'Classic 4. 1971, Page 34
Page 20
9) Sepam1a, S. ~.£U.

"What I mean is that if the situation requires broken or
'murdered' lnglish, then for God's sake one must do just
that.
If other people come to the sad conclusion that
writer so-and-so does not know English, then we should
not even offer prayers for these misguided people."

10) Raphaely. R• .£!!.• .£U.
11) See, for example, MShengu, 1978 :lo\fterSoweto : People's theatre

and the political struggle in South
Africa' in Theatre Quarterly vol ix
no. 33.

46