In this critical anthology of essays and interviews, some of the world's most respected scholars and practitioners writing and working in the area of South African theatre today share their detailed examinations and insights on the complex and contradictory context of Post-apartheid society.

South African theatre, drama, and performance is a vibrant and rapidly developing area of contemporary theatre studies. In this critical anthology of essays and interviews, some of the world's most respected scholars and practitioners writing and working in the area of South African theatre today share their detailed examinations and insights on the complex and contradictory context of post-apartheid society. Loosely grouped into the categories of Theatre, Drama, and Performance, the essays collected here offer a sampling of work being staged, produced, and written in the country today. The contributors document, contrast, and analyse significant case studies, representing examples from site-specific performance to new South African plays, from traditional indigenous performance practice to the reimagining of Western classics. The anthology takes the year of South Africa's first democratic election, 1994, as its departure point and includes a broad range of topics that capture the current paradigm.

Autorentext

Greg Homann is an independent academic, theatre director, and writer. He is the co-editor of the Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre (2015) as well the editor of At This Stage: Plays from Post-Apartheid South Africa (2009). Homann worked in The Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg as well as at AFDA, The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance, Johannesburg. He was the Standard Bank Young Artist Winner for Theatre in 2014. Marc Maufort is Professor of English, American and postcolonial literatures at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). Maufort has written and (co-)edited several books on O Neill as well as postcolonial and multi-ethnic drama, including Transgressive Itineraries. Postcolonial Hybridizations of Dramatic Realism (2003), and Labyrinth of Hybridities. Avatars of O Neillian Realism in Multi-ethnic American Drama (1972 2003) (2010).

Inhalt

Contents: Greg Homann/Marc Maufort: New Territories: Exploring the Post-apartheid Stage - Gay Morris: Ubizo - Voices of elok'shini: Listening Afresh to Theatre Voices from Cape Town's Townships - Veronica Baxter: Eastern Cape Voices in Post-apartheid Theatre - Chris Thurman: 'After Titus': Towards a Survey of Shakespeare on the Post-apartheid Stage - Greg Homann: Claiming Western Texts for Contemporary South African Theatre: Issues of Relevance and the Dead-end Pursuit of National Identity - Mwenya B. Kabwe: SUN: Composition, Continuum, Choreopoem. A Theatre-making Case Study in Post-apartheid South Africa - Brian Crow: 'The Dangerous Side of Writing': The Post-apartheid Memory Plays of Athol Fugard - Patrick Ebewo: Zakes Mda: The Satirist - Zingi Mkefa: The (New) Playwrights of the (New) Revolution - Petrus du Preez: Re-imagining Space and Identity: A New Generation of Post-apartheid Afrikaans Playwrights - Marcia Blumberg: Staging Miss Julie: Re-Visioning Strindberg - Marc Maufort: Negotiating the Post-apartheid Condition: Violence, Trauma and the Realist Aesthetic in Contemporary South African Drama - Loren Kruger: Reanimating the Ordinary: Walking, Talking and Performing in Johannesburg and Beyond - Anton Krueger/Zoë Reeve: Spectacles of Participation: Performing amaXhosa Authenticity at the National Arts Festival of South Africa - Jay Pather: Laws of Recall: Body, Memory and Site-Specific Performance in Contemporary South Africa.