At This Stage by
As South Africa continues to advance towards the fulfilment of its visionary constitution, significant shifts in the mode, style, and theme of its nation’s theater have begun to take hold. The four plays in this collection, by Lara Foot Newton, Mike van Graan, Motshabi Tyelele, and Craig Higginson, offer insights into an emerging national identity. The primary themes explored in the four texts—reconciliation, matriarchy, justice, accountability, corruption, truth, memory, and violence—reflect on the challenges and questions South Africans are confronted with in their nascent democratic state. In the two essays that complement this anthology, theater director Greg Homann argues that South African theater and her playwrights have surfaced into a new period, one that signals new themes and challenges. The mode of representation has shifted and the monological form we came to both loathe and love has dissipated to match a democratic society grappling with multiple points of view.Reach / Lara Foot Newton -- Some mother's sons / Mike van Graan -- Shwele Bawo! / Motshabi Tyelele -- Dream of the dog / Craig Higginson.
Johnny Boskak Is Feeling Funny and Other Plays by
This collection of plays, by popular South African playwright Greig Coetzee, represents the bulk of his work and is a fitting tribute to his talent. His unique style and flair for character and dialogue make him an important contemporary voice that speaks not just to South Africans, but to the common experience of people everywhere. His plays have been performed to much acclaim in countries as diverse as Singapore, Australia, and the US. He has garnered a strong following in the UK, where he is currently based, and has twice won the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Award. Even more than his sense of place and dialogue, it is his understanding of universal human dramas and dilemmas, plus the humor that he brings to his analysis of the human condition, that marks Coetzee as the outstanding dramatist that he is. Translation and phonetic guidance, as well as some contextual notes, are provided in the footnotes of this book to assist non-South African readers and performers. The anthology includes the plays: Johnny Boskak Is Feeling Funny, White Men with Weapons, Seeing Red, The Blue Period of Milton van der Spuy, Breasts: A Play about Men, Look Out, and Happy Natives.
Plays Two by
A farm lies in ruins. And with mother and father now gone, a brother and sister face eviction by an officious lawyer. Abandoned, they endlessly enact the rituals of punishment once visited upon them by their parents. Widely regarded as a milestone in South African theatre, the play African Gothic tells the story of their final danse macabre. Despite overwhelming critical acclaim, it was also fiercely condemned by Afrikaans conservatives as being a subversive portrayal of repression.
Good Heavens is a comedy thriller with the dark poetic heart of a folk-tale. Two spinster sisters, with their ailing mother and simple-minded brother, await the annual visit of their youngest sister. Deeply envious of her beauty and youth, they hatch a diabolical plot to rid themselves of her forever.
In Breathing In, on a stormy night in the last bitter months of the Second Anglo-Boer War, a seriously wounded General and his faithful Adjutant encounter a mysterious woman and her seductive other-worldly daughter, and are confronted with the subtle methods of survival these women have been forced to adopt. Accustomed to the rigours of war, the courageous Adjutant now faces a terrible choice.
Reza de Wet - Plays One by
The three plays Missing, Crossing and Miracle are folkloric and ostensibly native pieces of Afrikaner storytelling. All plays deal with the liberation of a character from an oppressive, matriarchal order and as such are eloquent and haunting expressions of the current generation of Afrikaner seeking to free itself from the Calvinist manacles of traditional Afrikanerdom.
Russian Trilogy by
The second volume of de Wet's plays brings together three pieces which takes as their inspiration the life and work of Anton Chekhov. Yelena uses the characters from Uncle Vanya. Three Sisters Two offers us a vision of the confusions and the collapse of value systems at times of revolution. Brothers looks at the Chekhov's relationships with his brothers.
Molora by
In this reworking of Aeschylus' Oresteia, Klytemnestra and Elektra face one another in a dramatic confrontation. Attempts to come to terms with their violent past echo testimonies delivered in Apartheid's wake throughout South Africa during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Aeschylus' chorus is replaced by Xhosa tribeswomen, who bring grace and humanity through their ancient art of split tone singing. Molora (the Sesotho word for 'ash') is an examination of vengeance, and the breaking of its cycles by the everyman.
Little Foot by
"A group of friends who were at school together decide to spend the night in some underground caves that are part of the Cradle of Humankind network, thirty miles outside of Johannesburg. The oldest pre-human remains have been found there, including a three-million-year-old hominin called Little Foot. As the group go deeper into the caves, and their ancient history emerges, forces are unleashed between them and around them that appear to have tragic consequences. Part realism, part nightmare, acclaimed South African playwright Craig Higginson's play takes us on an unforgettable journey into our unconscious ancestral memory"--Cover.
Nothing but the Truth by
Service of the Engine is a common local Chichewa-English expression in the Malawian fishing village where the author did her fieldwork. It refers to the practice of taking various pills--known locally as Ciba--in order to prevent and cure diseases associated with sex. This study explores the sensitive interface between the use of pharmaceuticals, available through an extensive informal distribution system, and self-treatment of sex-related diseases.
The author examines morally sensitive situations in which men and women opt for Ciba, and evaluates its efficacy, or effectiveness. The discussion not only covers physical and metaphorical aspects of efficacy, but also the possible social and moral effects of medication. It offers a fresh and empirically grounded perspective on the links between efficacy, sex-related diseases and moralities.
Birgitte Bruun graduated from the Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark and is currently working with reproductive health projects for United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Zulu Love Letter by
The 2004 film, Zulu Love Letter, won ten prestigious international awards and received over a dozen official invitations to premier international film festivals including the Venice International Film Festival (Venezia 61 orrizonti), Toronto International Film Festival, Fespaco (Burkina Faso), and the American Film Institute Los Angeles Festival, 2005.
Zulu Love Letter’s script, written by Bhekizizwe Peterson and Ramadan Suleman, is also a well-decorated article, having won the Special Jury Prize – Best Script 2001, at the Grand Prix du Meilleur Scenariste in Paris France.
Now, Wits University Press is proud to present the complete Peterson-Suleman screenplay.
Set against the backdrop of the success of the first democratic elections and the launch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, Zulu Love Letter is a story of two mothers in search of their daughters. Thandeka Khumalo is challenged with mending her estranged relationship with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Simangaliso, who grew up with her grandparents because of Thandeka’s career and political commitments. Tormented by a sense of guilt and grief that refuses to wane, Thandeka is battling to adjust to the changes around her. Her melancholy soul is compelled to confront her experiences of detention and torture when ghosts from the past reappear. Me’Tau, the mother of a young activist whose assassination Thandeka witnessed and reported, wants Thandeka to help in finding the body of Dineo so that she can be given a fitting burial. For mourning to end and for healing to take place, the psychic demons that haunt the present must be recognized and exorcised.
Marking the ebb-and-flow of the adults’ attempts to deal with the historical inheritances of apartheid, is the “Love Letter” that Simangaliso is weaving as a gift to her mother. A colorful tapestry of beads, trinkets and buttons, the "Love Letter" encapsulates the power of the arts in fostering memory-work, healing and love.
Everyone else (is fucking perfect)
Fools, bells, and the habit of eating: three satires
Iago's last dance: a trilogy of plays
Imadlalo kaZakes Mda: isiXhosa
In the blue beaker: a comedy about suicide
Johnny Boskak is feeling funny, and other plays
K Sello Duiker's The quiet violence of dreams: adapted for the stage
Living in strange lands: the testimony of Dimitri Tsafendas
MacBeki: a farce to be reckoned with
Relativity: "township stories"
The boy who fell from the roof
The boy who walked into the world
Thuthula: heart of the labyrinth
