Robert Mshengu Kavanagh - Theatre and Cultural Struggle Under Apartheid

African Culture Archive

Over the past forty years, Zed has established a long and proud tradition of publishing critical work on African issues, offering unique insights into the continents politics, development, history and culture. The African Culture Archive draws on this rich backlist, consisting of carefully selected titles that even now have enduring relevance years after their initial publication. Lovingly repackaged, with newly commissioned forewords that reflect on the impact the books have had, these are essential works for anyone interested in the cultural and literary landscape of the continent.

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Land, Freedom and Fiction: History and Ideology in Kenya David Maughan-Brown

Theory of African Literature: Implications for Practical Criticism Chidi Amuta

Writing African Women: Gender, Popular Culture and Literature in West Africa
ed. Stephanie Newell

About the author

Robert Mshengu Kavanagh played an active part in the development of South African theatre in the 1970s through his participation in Experimental Theatre Workshop 71 in Johannesburg and as founding editor of Sketsh , a magazine covering black and non-segregated theatre in South Africa. After leaving the country in 1976, he did his doctorate at Leeds University and then played a leading role in founding the Theatre Arts Departments at Addis Ababa University and the University of Zimbabwe, at both of which he was chairman of department. He is the editor of South African Peoples Plays (

Ian Steadman , former professor and chair of dramatic art at the University of the Witwatersrand, author of numerous essays on South African theatre during the 1980s and 1990s, and founding co-editor of the South African Theatre Journal , is retired and lives in Oxford, UK.

Other books by Robert Mshengu Kavanagh

The Making of a Servant and Other Poems (translated with Z. S. Qangule, 1971)

South African Peoples Plays (ed. )

Making Peoples Theatre (1997)/ Making Theatre (2016)

Ngoma: Approaches to Arts Education in Southern Africa (ed. 2006)

Zimbabwe: Challenging the Stereotypes (2015)

Evesdrop: The Tales of Adam Kok I (2015)

The Complete Sketsh (2016)

Mangothobane: A Soweto Nobody (2016)

A Contended Space: The Theatre of Gibson Mtutuzeli Kente (2016)

Selected Plays Vol. I: The Theatre of Workshop 71 (2016)

Selected Plays Vol. II: The Political Theatre of Zambuko/Izibuko (2017)

Selected Plays Vol. III: The New Horizon Youth Theatre Company (2017)

Jans Book (2017)

Theatre and
Cultural
Struggle under
Apartheid

Robert Mshengu Kavanagh

With a new Foreword by Ian Steadman

Theatre and Cultural Struggle under Apartheid was first published in 1985 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK

This ebook edition was first published in 2017

www.zedbooks.net

Copyright Robert Mshengu Kavanagh 1985

The right of Robert Mshengu Kavanagh to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Cover design: Kika Sroka-Miller

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78699-071-6 hb
ISBN 978-1-78360-980-2 pb
ISBN 978-1-78360-979-6 pdf
ISBN 978-1-78360-977-2 epub
ISBN 978-1-78360-978-9 mobi

To Workshop 71
And to Thembi, my late wife, who shouldered the
responsibilities this book forced me to neglect.
Angisoze ngikhohlwe, dudu.

Contents

Map Diagram of South Africa and the Witwatersrand

List of Abbreviations

Foreword by Ian Steadman

In the 1970s scholars began drawing attention to an emerging view of South African theatres functional role in cultural change. Building on the work of social scientists who were interrogating South African political economy, class formation and race relations, observers of the theatre intensified their focus on the role of performance in shaping culture and consciousness. A new radical paradigm emerged in South African theatre studies.

In 1980 two doctoral theses on South African performance, both exhibiting these influences, were completed. The first was by Robert McLaren in England and the second by David Coplan in the USA. In 1981 a third doctorate, with a focus outside this paradigm, was submitted by Peter Larlham in the USA. In the same year the journal Critical Arts produced an issue on South African theatre and identified its position within the radical paradigm. Then various writers in journals like the South African Labour Bulletin and English in Africa demonstrated the significance of the new critical strategies through various essays on South African literature and theatre. By the middle of the 1980s a range of scholars had subpoenaed the theatre to bear witness to cultural and political change. The radical theorists had injected new life into the study of South African theatre and performance, and the work of theatre practitioners had attracted the attention of audiences internationally.

The initial impact of this work was extensive. While South African theatre practitioners won accolades on international stages, academic journals nurtured a burgeoning interest in the new theatre. The above-mentioned PhDs were published, while new theses and dissertations were pursued within the academy. The scholarly writing found a hungry readership as South Africa in the period of late apartheid became a focus of world-wide attention. Universities introduced new courses and new texts as scholars and theatre practitioners interrogated the cultural artefacts and received traditions that had for so long determined a status quo in the study of South African cultural expression.

In such a context the publication of McLarens 1980 thesis was a significant event. Appearing in print five years after completion of the thesis, under the name of Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, the first edition of Theatre and Cultural Struggle in South Africa became an instant hit. Amidst the flurry of essays, books and journal articles that appeared, this was ground-breaking, and arguably the single most important study of South African theatre.

It remains so to this day. The re-publication of this book after more than thirty years needs little justification. The book is a prism through which the authors insights and cultural activism in the 1970s heralded important insights into subsequent events. The collapse of apartheid, the birth of South African democracy, and the growing pains associated with the infant years of that democracy, all have direct relevance to many of the arguments and analyses in Kavanaghs writing.