Landscape and body. - Free Online Library Overview "Stories matter in any exposition of truth, not only because they enable us to illuminate elusive realities but because they help us to deal with the aporias of pain." --Rustom Bharucha [2005, p. 363] "The sufferings most often deemed worthy of representation are those understood to be the product of wrath, divine or human." --Susan Sontag [2003, p.36] For over thirty years indigenous South African theatre concerned itself predominantly with new work of protest and resistance against the apartheid system. With her new founded democracy in 1994 came a much celebrated new period in South Africa's history, and indeed in the medium of theatre, but with this new founded freedom theatre makers appeared to be at a loss. The long standing routine of creating protest work was no longer necessary. Questions of "What now?", "What are our stories?', "What is theatre's function in this new society?" emerged, leaving well established playmakers puzzled at what to reflect. Then, after almost eight years of patient struggle to find a fresh voice, a watershed production, Nothing But the Truth, premiered on 4 July 2002 at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. Since then the doors to new stories have begun to open. Through a close analysis of three recently lauded new South African plays this essay aims to consider the current trends in South African theatre, post-apartheid. How do these productions quote the prolific canon of work that has gone before? What are the new themes? Which are rehashed preoccupations? As an attempt at a depiction of 'truth', what are the current theatrical experiments in South Africa's traumatized society? The master narrative of Apartheid was clear. The dominant narrativeof the struggle presented a united front against an oppressive regime,but now South Africa's project is to create a country that"belongs to all who live in it, united in diversity."Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, Preamble] Ourresponsibility in this task is as important as our politicians, andperhaps the greatest challenge to us all is that small addition of thosethree words "united in diversity". Accepting then that ournotion of a society is embodied in the stories we choose to tell--thetruths we choose to tender--what then is the prevailing narration of ourtime? (1) Perhaps the most significant event that contributed to informing South Africa's narrative discourse, post-apartheid, is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In the words of Desmond Tutu the task of the commission was to "unearth the truth about our (South Africa's) dark past, to lay the ghosts of that past so that they will not return to haunt us and that we will thereby contribute to the healing of a traumatized and wounded people, for all of us in South Africa are wounded people". (2) During South Africa's extraordinary shift towards an inclusive democracy the TRC offered individual amnesty for violations committed between March 1960 and May 1994. "Running on the slogan 'Truth, the Road to Reconciliation,' the commission tried to paint a 'true' picture of the history of political trauma in South Africa, and thereby to contribute to the reconciliation of a society polarized by racial prejudice" [Bester 2002, p. 163].
I will argue that this archive of memory has become more than just a space for exposing previously hidden stories of torture, violence, terrorism, and brutal oppression; more so, for theatre makers and storytellers, the TRC has strongly emerged as an event that informs how South African narratives are now relayed. An aim of this essay is to recognize the TRC as a body of knowledge that has influenced current trends in South African theatre. What I will explore is the shift from agitprop theatre to theatre created in a democratic state. This shift has been a slow process, one where the remains of the protest genre (3) linger and where the TRC is engrained in the treatment of the storytelling. The act of witnessing, so strongly set up by the 1 674 hearings (4) held by the TRC, appears to now be inherent in how South African theatre practitioners construct stories. The longstanding and honourable debate about the relationshipbetween theatre and society is assumed here, thus I am working under thepremise that theatre is indicative of the sociopolitical context withinwhich it has been made. It must also be stated here that I am assertingthat the South African state is a traumatized one. Acts of violence loomlarge in the South African psyche, leaving many in a state of trauma.This assertion is certainly not a fabrication and is well supported bythe seven weighty volumes that articulate the findings of the TRC, andin many ways is reinforced on a daily basis by the abundance of localnewspaper headings, crime reports, and sociological findings oforganizations such as the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) (5).Public debate and emergent themes go hand-in-hand as theatre serves itsfunction as an imitative art. Different Types of Truth As a retelling and reenactment of narratives of apartheid-era violence, the TRC process was driven by the performances of individual witnesses. "Making and maintaining the relationship between past, present, and future is one of the primary functions of the archive. Rather than recording the past neutrally, archives are structural forms that make ideological offerings of the past to fuel the fire of humanity's movement into the future" [Bester 2005, p. 164]. Unique to South Africa's truth commission was that hearings were not held in camera but rather in public, where the audience witnessed the testimonies in situ--this is theatre of a special kind. The TRC Report [1998] identified four modalities of truth used as a framework to assess amnesty hearings. These categories are useful in offering a structure around which one can investigate narrative trends in the case studies. The first category deals with factual information. This category's "concern was directed to findings on particular incidents involving specific persons" [Foster, Haupt & De Beer 2005, p. 22]. The prolific history of South African plays dominated by the protest genre are not distant from the notion of including factual information as a way to offer credence to the narrative plot line. In fact much of the accepted cannon's acclaim, prior to 1994, stems from its ability to merge the names of places, events, political figures and, what has now been accepted as archival document, into 'fictionalized' narratives. Athol Fugard has on many occasions considered himself a mere scribe of the factual stories that surround him. Then tonight, talking to Sheila--telling her that the idea had come to me yesterday at this table, that my life's work was possibly just to witness as truthfully as I could, the nameless and destitute (desperate) of this one little corner of the world. --Athol Fugard [Statements 1978, p. 3] The role of the theatre maker is aligned with one who witnesses. Theatre that fits comfortably in this catogory has been termed docu-drama, with the best of this style having been created by Barney Simon throughout the 80's at a time when the country was constantly fluctuating in and out
of a State of Emergency. Most notably, Born in the RSA (1986), stands today as the quintessential text working as an historical document offering factual accounts through storytelling (6). The second kind of truth recognized by the TRC was testimonial in form and accepts personal retellings of events as significant truths, aiming towards storytelling as a means to "restore both memory and humanity" [Foster, Haupt & De Beer 2005, p. 22]. These stories monopolized the media throughout the late 90's giving to the South African public a rhetoric that positioned visual depictions of violence vividly within her landscape. Guy Debord [in Bester 2005, p.170] considers that one of the functions of the TRC was to shift "all that was once directly lived" into "mere representation." This vocabulary defined by the TRC, although of course created by Apartheid, yet only made public through the testimonies delivered between April 1996 and May 2001, will be a strong focus of the discussion that follows. The argument here is that the South African public has been educated in a complicated and extremely sophisticated discourse of violence, allowing a viewing of theatrical constructions of violence that are unique to a South African society. As you will see, the case studies, especially Tshepang and Relativity, have at their core deeply disturbing depictions of violent acts. The spectacle and treatment of these images of violence are clearly informed by the plethora of shocking narratives archived by the TRC. Some of these images play out overtly on stage and others exist only in the minds eye of the audience but, nonetheless, the detail and understanding of these shocking images is refined and established. Category three delves into social or dialogical truth. "A form of experimental truth created through debate, interaction and discussion" [Foster, Haupt & De Beer 2005, p. 22]. This was a space for questioning and reflection. The aim here was to delve into perspectives on South Africa's history offered by specific ideological positions or particular sectors of the community. "Such processes of dialogue were intended to promote participation, transparency and democracy." [Ibid, p. 22] Much of this way of formulating narrative truths seems to be evidenced in current theatre work, especially through the one-person show. Amongst these shows are such works as Mathew Ribnick's Chilli Boy and Hoot, Motshabi Tyelele's Shwele Bawo, Steven Simm's Miss Kwa Kwa and Nadia David's At Her Feet, to name a few. These 'identity' shows deal with issues of being South African from a very specific cultural standpoint. (7) Interestingly, the abundance of this work--often playing to full houses with multiple return seasons--has been made by talented young performers and writers following in the tradition of satirist and renowned political commentator Pieter Dirk Uys (8). The nature of this work is often didactic and struggles to carry the weight of more evenly balanced work that offers multiple viewpoints simultaneously. This genre too then is in many ways a progression of the protest genre and, more specifically, a progression of the confessional monologue popularized by Barney Simon through the 80's. The assertion by South African theatre historian Temple Hauptfleisch [1997, p. 117] that the duty of the theatre maker is an injunction "to 'go forth and bear witness' by giving evidence and expressing your understanding of what is happening, based on certain belief and value systems you share with the rest of the community" is a heritage continued under this telling of truths. Here the witnessing is not merely an account of facts but rather an acknowledgement of personal truths from apparent cultural and ideological viewpoints. The fourth kind of truth identified by the TRC was one that focused on restoration and healing of what was, and ostensibly still is, a damaged society. This was an attempt to look back on a past while offering a vision of the future. The catch phrase 'never again' became synonymous with this method of reconciliation. Boraine [in Foster, Haupt & De Beer 2005, p. 22-23] argues that "knowledge or truth wasn't enough. For healing to be possible, knowledge would have to be accompanied by 'acknowledgement'; an acceptance of accountability. Public acknowledgement would hopefully restore human dignity to victims/survivors and contribute to healing." It is perhaps this category that opens a discussion on the most notorious achievements of the TRC. The decision
to offer individual amnesty that releases known violators free into society has arguably set up a culture void of responsibility. The notion of 'accountability' is now a daily public debate. Most significantly Relativity highlights this debate as characters wander the stage with little if any social conscience for the actions they perform (but more about that later). It is not my intention to consider the demerits or merits of the TRC's recognizing of differences between types of truth. This intention especially excludes making references to popular movements such as post-modernism, post-structuralism and social constructionism that preclude ideas of objective truth. It is obvious that the simplification of types of truth into four headings sets up a hierarchical tension between types of truth and simultaneously obscures accepted notions of truth in its most pure definition. More importantly it must be acknowledged that these four modalities of truth; objective truth, personal truth, dialogical truth, and restorative truth, are now modes significant in equating social and political standpoints within South Africa. Thus these key concepts of truth are crucial to considering how makers of representational social commentary construct their narratives. My strategy is to explore how South African theatre operates in relation to the discourse set up by the TRC. A State of Violence Violence and acts of brutality are universal in our world of terrorism and war. Representational modes mirror these images back to us in vivid detail often treating them in a way that makes the reality of the depiction even starker. Momentarily consider the language of terror that dominates international news reports. "If it bleeds it leads" appears to be the statement of our time. And this tendency to sensationalize is nothing new. Leonardo da Vinci, in the 1300's gave instructions to his artists to: Make the conquered and beaten pale, with brows raised and knit, and the skin above their brows furrowed with pain ... and the teeth apart as with crying out in lamentation ... Make the dead partly or entirely covered with dust ... and let the blood be seen by its color (sic) flowing in a sinuous stream from the corpse to the dust. Others in the death agony grinding their teeth, rolling their eyes, with their fists clenched against their bodies, and the legs distorted. --Extrapolated from Regarding the Pain of Others [Sontag 2003, p. 66-67] The concern here is "that the images to be devised won't be sufficiently upsetting: not concrete, not detailed enough" [Sontag 2003, p. 67]. But there is another type of violence that plagues the South African citizen; one beyond the international fear of terror or the history of political violence many carry in their memory. These are the images that replay in one's head of the potential to become a victim of a high-jacking, a rape, a torturous house breaking, a murder. The inevitability of these mental constructs turning into lived experiences is a familiar occurrence. South Africa is a violent society. (9) McKendrick & Hoffmann's [1999] detailed sociological study of the nature of violence in South Africa is a critical contribution to contextualizing popular opinion on the repercussions of violence. Their study points out that definitions of violence are negotiable "because what constitutes 'violence' is always a social construction" [McKendrick & Hoffmann 1999, p. 3]. As current trends indicate, theatrical depictions of violence on South Africa's stages are becoming common place and so it is necessary at the outset to offer some definition of the phenomenon of violence in order to analyze the case studies that follow. One broad definition presents violence as "destructive harm ... including not only physical assaults that damage the body, but also ... the many techniques of inflicting harm by mental or emotional means". [Walter cited in McKendrick & Hoffmann 1999, p. 3]
This definition avoids the tendency to define violence from a specific cultural standpoint. Walter, writing in 1969, is certainly drawing his definition from an understanding that one man's violence could be another man's social practice, and--although I make this statement tentatively-current accepted custom demands a flexibility to view alternative cultural practice as condonable. To consider South Africa a traumatized society is to consider a very different type of psychological being in the world. Violence in Apartheid South Africa was something that the majority of the theatre going audience needed to be told about. (10) Now we infuse ourselves with the violent scenarios that play out regularly in our mind's eye. Representations in South Africa can now be more suggestive because we have a vocabulary for it as a result of experiences lived out in our daily lives. The Case Studies Popular opinion affirms that few South African plays have recently achieved public recognition that would lead to a sustainable life in a theatrical canon. In fact there are a handful of seminal works that one would hesitantly consider to be appropriate additions upon the shelf where the accepted anthology sits. Works to match Sizwe Bansi is Dead (Fugard, Kani, & Ntshona), Woza Albert! (Simon, Ngema, & Mtwa), Hello and Goodbye (Fugard), Born in the RSA (Simon, & The Cast), Sarafina! (Ngema), The Island (Fugard, Kani, & Ntshona), and Sophitown (The Junction Avenue Theatre Company) seem to be few and far between. Nothing But the Truth must surely be the most prominent of recent plays to claim its place amongst the canon established before it. In this respect Tshepang and Relativity's fate is yet uncertain. The three case studies have however been chosen for a number of reasons. Firstly, they represent the most lauded of productions to come out of South Africa over the last five years (11). All three have had international tours, played in more than two mainstream theatre centres in their home country and, perhaps most significantly, are published texts now studied either in schools or universities. These texts stand as a cross section of the best of South African theatre recently on offer. Set in 2000 Nothing But the Truth by John Kani tells the story of Sipho Makhaya, the Assistant Chief Librarian of a small public library in Port Elizabeth. Sipho (played by Kani) lives in "a simple fourroomed house in New Brighton" with his only daughter, Thando, who is a teacher and "an interpreter at the Amnesty hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission" [Kani 2002, p. 2]. The play opens on Sipho and Thando nervously awaiting the arrival of Mandisa Mackay, Sipho's "English-born niece" who is arriving for the first time to the country of her father's birth. Mandisa's visit is in aid of facilitating the burial of her father (Themba Makhaya). She is yet to meet her estranged family thus setting up the potential for the sharing of family history. Cleverly foregrounding the TRC the play revolves around the revealing of hidden stories of a family deeply affected by the political struggle responsible for Themba's exile. Mandisa's arrival-an outsider brought up in another country with a different set of cultural practices acts as a catalyst for father and daughter, uncle and niece, cousin and cousin, to share untold stories of deceit, animosity and betrayal. The audience witnesses the unveiling of a number of narratives that have been secreted across family relationships and, in turn, the play manages to construct a microcosm of broader public debate. Tshepang--The Third Testament by Lara Foot-Newton is the shocking retelling of the story--inspired by the real event--of the rape of a nine-month old baby girl named Tshepang. "Sadly, this raped infant had become yet another horrifying statistic, yet another mind-numbing fact about a still traumatized country" [Sichel in Foot-Newton 2001, p. xiv] Simon, an unemployed craftsman who
fills his time carving small wooden nativity figures (See Appendix 1B--Photo 4, p. 36), inhabits a tiny RDP (12) (Reconstruction and Development Programme) house as he recounts the events leading up to and just after the rape of Ruth's daughter. Ruth, silent, sits by, grating salt into an animal skin, an act of curing, as Simon, in direct address, narrates. Originally entitled Based on Twenty Thousand True Stories the play is a fictionalized account of the real events that took place in 2001 in Louisvaleweg, a small barren town situated in the Karoo (13). The news reports of this event made local and international headlines bringing to light numerous other accounts of baby and child rape in South Africa. A scavenge of media descended on the small town bringing a much needed, yet short lived, economy to this economically deprived little settlement (See Appendix 1B Photo 6, p. 36). The sudden abundance of trade into the town singled young baby Siesie out as a savior of the community, thus the community of Louisvaleweg renamed her Tshepang. The tag title-The Third Testament--implies that baby Tshepang was the second messiah, sacrificed to save the sins of the small town. Designed by Gerhardt Marx, the visual treatment of Tshepang is emblematic of Foot-Newton's key concern to highlight the landscape as the primary transgressor of the rape. Through the use of miniatures, symbolic objects endowed with meaning, metaphor and religious iconography the plays power resides in the success of its design elements in juxtaposition to the potent subject matter (View Appendix 4--A short film based on the original stage production, p. 59). For this reason, much of my analysis in relation to this case study addresses the visual treatment of the text. The third case study then contributes to assessing the abundant collection of depictions of violence we are currently seeing in South African performance. Relativity--Township Stories is about a community plagued by the 'G-String strangler', a serial killer traumatized by demons rising from sexual abuse at the hand of his father. The audience is introduced to a number of characters whose lives are in some way intertwined with the killer's. A primary concern of the writer-director is to communicate to the audience a single narrative from multiple points of view leading towards an argument that all stories are relative. Unlike Tshepang, Relativity opts for overt representations of violence within the performance space. Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom has been the focus of much controversy as a result of his provocative constructions of sex, rape, torture, abuse and murder. Many have called his work sensationalist but this essay intends to avoid these tedious debates and rather focuses on the root vocabulary that Grootboom seems to be drawing from. Lastly, it must be stated that there are, for each case study, two texts under analysis. It is crucial to recognize that, while the basis of my critical analysis is through the written (published) text, the performance text in each case does, to a degree, affect my reading of the plays. Although this is, to a lesser extent, the case with Nothing But the Truth, the performance text of Tshepang is essential in considering the inability of the literary text to communicate the visual component that is so crucial in understanding the play as a whole. Relativity most of all demands a thorough investigation as a performance text over and above its published version. It is perhaps apt to offer here that the bulk of the stage directions in the published text of Relativity do not belong to the writers and in fact are guides, added by the series editor, to assist the reader in following the action. It is for this reason that part of this project has been to generate archival material in the form of photographs (Appendix 1), interviews (Appendix 2), press-cuttings (Appendix 3) and other visual material (Appendix 4) to assist in a more rigorous analysis of the texts in performance. The Body as a Place of Violence "The marked body is not only a physical "site", a place, but also a visualized "sight," a space--a space
of the discursive reenactment of violence" --Rory Bester [2002, p. 168] Through the measuring of the width of a nose, the density of pepper-corned hair, or the manner of gesturing when passing an object from one hand to another, the Apartheid government established the human body as a place that evidenced an individual's racial grouping. (14) The TRC achieved a shift of focus from the body as a racialised being to a physical location that houses more than just 'evidence' of racial identity. Systematically, story by story, the TRC has constructed the South African body as a container of atrocities, a site that locates crimes against humanity. Rory Bester [2002] argues that the TRC set a precedent to elevate the body as a 'performative space' for violence. Within the performative space of the TRC process, which was often gripped by a sense of theatricality and drama, the trauma of the private space of individual witnesses was transformed into the public spectacle of the violated body. Effected, in part, through the role played by the print and electronic media, spectacle runs the risk of reducing performative space to a cultural traffic in body parts. The dismembered identities of trauma are traded as the currency of different cultural psychoses. [Bester 2002, p.170] By placing the witness before a public forum the personal truth released from the memory of the individual is transferred into a public spectacle. The act is cathartic for the witness as the memory is birthed out of the mind and into the world. However, through multiple imaginings witness after witness in public display--the identity of the body becomes separate from the individual, as ownership of the narrative shifts from the first person to the third person. Bester considers the case of police captain Jeffrey Benzien torturing Toni Yengeni as a prime example of how "the spectacle of performance", which became routine through the TRC process contributed to "dismembering the body from its narrative" [Bester 2002, p. 170]. Antjie Krog chronicles the 'Benzien moment' in her acclaimed journalistic study on the TRC, Country of My Skull. At Yengeni's insistence, Benzien demonstrates the wet bag method. 'I want to see it with my own eyes.' The judges, who have come a long way from meticulously sticking to court procedures, jump up so as not to miss the spectacle. Photographers come running, not believing their luck. And the sight of this bluntly built white man squatting on the back of a black victim, who lies face down on the floor, and pulling a blue bag over his head will remain one of the most loaded and disturbing images in the life of the Truth Commission. [Krog 2002, p. 73] Both Krog (2002) and Bester (2002) concede the precedent which the TRC established for spectacle value. Benzien's "performative reenactment of what had remained hidden within the words of so many TRC submissions and testimonies suddenly brought to light a vision of the physical brutalities that had underpinned the hidden spaces of interrogation and torture in apartheid-era South Africa" [Bester 2002, p.167]. "The lies, the deceptions, the brutality, the tears, the weaknesses, and the strengths were transformed into theatre via the representations, which were broadcast regularly on SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) and national radio and reported in the national press" [Coombes 2003, p. 244]. The playing out of methods of torture such as the 'wet bag method' instills the body as a performative site for violence [Bester 2002]. "In the South African context, it is
the physically and emotionally marked body that narrates the history of apartheid-era violence." (15) This implements the "performative body" as a crucible for locating trauma, a site for the "visualization of the physical traces of" trauma--both past and present. (16) The South African Body In Tshepang Ruth is the site that locates the trauma of her community. With a miniature bed strapped to her back--the weight and burden of her sorrows--she sits and grates salt into the animal skin that she is curing (See Appendix 1B--Photo 5). Poverty stricken, guilt ridden, and, save for Simon, alone, she is trapped to listen as Simon routinely narrates the story of the rape of her ninemonth old baby. While the narrative progresses towards the moment of violation, objects within the performance space are systematically loaded with meaning. A loaf of bread is established as a substitute receptacle for sexual penetration. If we didn't finish in time [acts out terrible disappointment] her brother Petrus, for an extra two cents, would let us continue inside a half-loaf of white bread [happily starts pomping (17) away] that he'd stuck carefully into an ant heap at exactly the right height [he ejaculates]. [Foot-Newton 2001, p. 26] Here Simon is telling the story of when young boys of the town would visit Sarah, a girl who would prostitute herself for five cents. Sarah would lie on the back seat of a Datsun behind the school toilets reading a comic while the young pubescent boys would, one after the other, penetrate her. Later, the broom is set up as Alfred Sorrows. Simon narrates an incident when Alfred soils his pants from uncontrollably laughing at Jaintjies's pulling of ugly faces. Then suddenly, Alfred was standing in a pool of liquid, which happened to be pee. When Alfred realized what had happened he started to shake. He was terrified. And then it happened, Margaret, the houvrou (18), came round the corner and saw Alfred standing in his pee. From nowhere she grabbed a broom and started to beat Alfred. [He acts out the beating of the broom.] At first I thought it was a joke, and then I saw her face. She had become the devil. I ran and hid in a big drainpipe, and watched as she pummeled Alfred until his small body lay quietly in a pool of piss. Then she stopped and, for a moment, reflected on what she had done and then ... then ... AYEEEEEE! She began to beat him again ... The broom breaks, and he looks at it in horror. It takes on the form of the broken bones of little Alfred. [Foot-Newton 2001, p. 26] When the rape of baby Tshepang is reenacted for the audience the blunt end of a broom is merely plunged repeatedly into a loaf of white bread, massacring the bread into pieces (See Appendix 1B-Photo 9, p. 37). "The goal here is to create an engaged and critical, but never emotionally distanced, audience member" [Marx in Foot-Newton 2001, p. xii] The objects have become infused with so many stories that the moment of interaction between broom and bread is no longer a simple depiction [Marx, G 2006, pers. comm., 21 August]. The symbolism is clear; the broom is Alfred Sorrows, the bread, roughly the same size as a nine month old baby, is baby Tshepang. In performance this moment is horrific. Lara and I have often sat and watched the audience at that moment. Men cover their eyes, and that is fascinating because there isn't any rape on stage. They are closing their eyes off from an image
that is inside their heads, an image that they are making. All we are doing is pushing a broken broom into a loaf of bread but completing that image is an act of the audience member. We are implicating the viewer. The viewer has to imagine the event happening. You hear of those things but part of what makes you numb is your inability to imagine what it actually is. How deep does a penis go into a baby? [Marx, G 2006, pers. comm., 21 August] The theatre makers in this case have avoided spectacle opting rather for a theatrical construction of violence that implicates the viewer in the moment of transgression. Marx [2006, pers. comm., 21 August] argues that the moment one "depicts violence too graphically" you are "depicting it as separate from the viewer". The presence of Ruth as a performative site of violence could not be more potent than in Tshepang. Ruth is an item of evidence that a crime has been committed. Her presence is coupled with the broom and the bread. These objects--Ruth, the broom, the bread--are a reminder of trauma. A reminder located in the visual seeing of things. For the people of this town poverty disables the shedding of household necessities, hence the shedding of these memories. Even the bed on which the rape was committed can not be discarded. Ruth sits on it (See Appendix 1B--Photo 3, p. 35), sleeps on it (See Appendix 1B--Photo 2, p. 35), it is both a functional object she can not do without and a perpetual reminder of her grief. Each object on the stage compounds one traumatic memory with the next. The result is that the South African body has now been reinvented. Through the tribunal process of the TRC the South African body is no longer simply an evidence sheet on which racial signposts are marked, it is now also the 'site of the crime'. A Vocabulary for Torture I propose that the spectacle set up by such public reenactments of torture and abuse, like that of the wet bag method by Jeffrey Benzien, supplied South African theatre-makers with a complex vocabulary that informs their theatrical representation of brutality, abuse, and horror. Earlier in Relativity a suspect of the crimes, Dario, is interrogated by two detectives (See Appendix 1C--Photo 6, p. 40). "A handcuffed Dario (twenty-four) is hauled into the interrogation room by a uniformed cop" [Grootboom & Chwenyagae 2006, p. 13]. The two cops proceed to manhandle him. ROCKS: Take his pants off! MOLOMO: What? ROCKS: Take his pants off! MOLOMO: Can we talk first? ROCKS: Talk about what? Take his pants off, I got the matches--do your part! MOLOMO: Can we talk in private first? ROCKS: Talk about what?! MOLOMO: Look man, I don't think he did it.
ROCKS: We talked about this, let's not go back to that. MOLOMO: But Rocks, we can't torture him. He didn't do it. ROCKS: Whose side are you? Were you there when this girl was killed? MOLOMO: No, but ROCKS: Then don't say he didn't do it. MOLOMO: But he doesn't fit the profile. He's not the serial killer type! ROCKS: Don't come and tell me about a profile, written by some woman who knows bugger all about police work. I've been a cop for over twenty years. And anyway, if he didn't do it, we'll see after I burn his balls. This always works, he won't lie when his balls are being roasted like chicken, he'll tell the truth. Now come on, cuff him and let's take off his trousers. [Ibid, p.17-18, Act 1: Beat Two] Rocks and Molomo manhandle him further. "They cuff him and take off his pants. They burn his balls. He screams and screams" [Ibid, p.18, Act 1: Beat Two]. The events that play out on stage mirror accounts of Apartheid brutality frequently told during the period of the TRC hearings. It was then that the nightmare began. I was handed over to the Zeerust branch of the security police, who interrogated me for about a week. I was beaten, given electric shocks, suffocated, kept naked and repeatedly raped with a police baton. I remember very few details, except the screaming. I was nineteen years old at the time. - "A letter from Tim" to the Mail & Guardian [Extrapolated from Krog 1998, p. 144] ... they tied my genitals parts with that wire, and my hands were tied to the back, and they shocked me on my parts ... When they came back they started kicking me--'Are you still resisting?' - "Mahlasela Paul Mhlonga, testifying in Nelspruit" [Extrapolated from Krog 1998, p. 144] These two accounts of torture under interrogation are two of literally hundreds--if not thousands--of stories like them that have entered the public arena since 1994, either through the TRC hearing or through letters to newspapers, media interviews, television magazine programmes, documentaries, etc. Emerging Narratives Annie Coombes [2003 p. 244] points out that the hearings only ever "staged" the individual in one of three ways: as victim, perpetrator, or hero. The emerging narratives of contemporary South African plays appear to continue the legacy of treating characters as either the victim, the perpetrator or the hero. Kani's Nothing But the Truth makes a strong argument that the real champions of the struggle were not the celebrated freedom fighters who dominate South Africa's seats in parliament but rather those "faceless South Africans" who took part in the struggle [Kani in Barron 2003, Sunday Times, 28 Sept].
SIPHO: ... I was part of the Struggle. I too suffered as a black person. I went to the marches like everyone else. I might not have been detained. I might not have been on Robben Island. I did not leave this country, but I suffered too. The thousands that attended those funerals on Saturdays, that was me. The thousands that were tear gassed, sjamboked by the police, mauled by Alsatian dogs, that was me. When Bishop Tutu led thousands through the streets of white Port Elizabeth, that was me. I WAS THOSE THOUSANDS! [Kani 2002, p. 51--52 Act 2: Scene One] In opposition to Kani's intention to establish the 'common man' as a hero, Relativity is devoid of any hero's. Grootboom establishes each character as both a victim and a perpetrator. The plays structure is such that each beat works consistently towards either setting up one of the twenty-four characters as a victim of emotional abuse, domestic violence, rape, brutality, or showing the characters perpetrating such acts. At one point the audience witnesses a flashback with the actors playing out a sequence that charts "Thabo's story from birth until when he's around thirteen years old" [Grootboom and Chweneyagae 2006, p. 39]. We observe six distinct beats, underscored by music and played out at high speed, that chart young Thabo's life. 1) Rocks (Thabo's father) lovingly guides Mihloti (Thabo's mother) to the bed on which she will deliver Thabo into the world. 2) Doctors assist in the delivery of Thabo as Mihloti "screams and screams". 3) Thabo begins to crawl as Mom and Dad admiringly watch. It is the vision of the beginnings of an idealistic nuclear family. 4) Thabo learns to walk, with Dad near by to catch him. He wanders off to play with the other toddlers. 5) The family rides in a car, which ends in a car crash. 6) Rocks carries Mihloti out of the car wreck to a bed on which she dies. The next beat plays out in real time with Thabo being interrogated by his father. Rocks questions Thabo--now thirteen--about complaints he has received from his teacher, Mrs. MaKuta, who says he is paying no attention to his school work, he is sleeping in class and is failing his tests. Thabo begins to cry. ROCKS: Why are you crying?! THABO: Papa akere wean ha ke bala o tla mo gonna, [Papa, when I sleep you come to me and again you hit me].and.and.you hurt me. o nkutlwisa botlhoko kana she ... [oh, you are hurting me] Sometimes , sometimes when I think of coming home, I get.I get this feeling.this feeling of not coming home.MaKutu always asks me what's wrong and .and I feel like telling her the truth. gore wean o nkutlwisa botlhoko ha ke robetse.gore wa ntshwara. [that you hurt me when I'm sleeping ... that you touch me] and I don't like how you touch me.and.that you don't.you don't love me. [Ibid, p. 41-42, Act 1: Beat Six] An angelic vision of Mihloti appears as Rocks proceeds to fondle Thabo. The culmination of the scene is a moment of transgression between father and son.
He slowly gets under the blankets with THABO, trying not to wake him. He then slowly fondles him. ROCKS is crying, as if feeling guilty for what he finds himself doing. THABO wakes up. THABO: Papa he-e! Papa ntlogele! [Papa no! Please leave me alone!] THABO cries again. THABO: O rile oka se tlhole o ntshwara gape.ntlogele papa ... [You said you wouldn't touch me again ... leave me alone papa.] He rapes the boy, saying: ROCKS: (spiritually tortured) Sorry, Bigboy ... Sorry, my boy ... Skalla sani ... Papa wa o rata, wa utlwa chana? [Don't cry my son ... Papa loves you, you hear chana?] [Ibid, p. 43-44, Act 1: Beat Six] The scene attempts to motivate why Rocks molests his thirteen year old boy. In the absence of a wife, Rocks turns to his son for sexual satisfaction. A tenuous argument to say the least, but nonetheless, clearly the argument Grootboom and Chweneyagae wish to put forward. The scene also acts as a prefiguring that motivates why Thabo craves killing and rapping women. Patience Bambalele of the Sowetan [7 April 2006, p. 8] newspaper reviewed the show, stating that the "play makes the point that most serial killers are victims of sexual abuse"--a bold generalization but obviously a point clearly made by the play. Thabo as a young boy was the victim of sexual abuse. He now becomes the perpetrator. His father too is a perpetrator. In a parallel narrative Relativity establishes a similar abusive relationship between a boyfriend and a girlfriend (See Appendix 1C--Photos 9 to 11, p. 41). Matlakala, in direct address to the audience, says: ... I didn't care about my showing tummy, I just went everywhere and I had fun.And that's why he beat me up. He found me at my friend Patricia's house, and he beat me up all the way home.As if trying to embarrass me in front of people. (Beat) After beating me up like that, strangely, the baby survived.I resented that fact. I felt he had no right beating me up that way and still having his baby survive it. [Grootboom & Chweneyagae 2006, p. 50, Act 2: Beat One] Matlakala then sits over a plastic basin and proceeds to abort her baby by graphically inserting a wire coat hanger up her vagina. It streams with blood. Again, the once victim becomes a perpetrator. Grootboom and Chweneyagae's landscape is a place of perpetrators and victims only. Landscape and Memory "Few events produce such strong ambivalent feelings as acts of violence, and as societies grapple with these feelings in public debate, the struggle comes to imprint itself on landscape." --Kenneth Foote [sited in Bester, 2002, p. 165] Documenting through theatre was a dominant project of the protest genre. The inclusion of factual
information; the names of real people, the mention of real events, places, historical moments, etc. was a frequent occurrence. Publishing a play gave space to proffer an alternative history of the country, a history in opposition to the overriding and repressive Apartheid narrative. The leading lights of this agit-prop theatre--Workshop 71, The Serpent Players (Athol Fugard, John Kani, & Winston Ntshona), The Junction Avenue Theatre Company under the guidance of Malcolm Purkey (now the Artistic Director of the Market Theatre, the home of new South African work), Committed Artists headed by Mbongeni Ngema and The Company (Barney Simon and Mannie Mannim)--tasked themselves with recovering "histories of South Africa that were untold or erased by the apartheid regime." [Orkin 1995, p. 134] Nothing But the Truth weaves a layer of historic moments through its narrative trajectory. This makes the play specific to a locale, a time, a place. I think it is directly lived in experience because it is John's (Kani's) memories of a very particular community and a very particular way of living. It is that Fugard sense of being a very intensely regional writer who knows the world being written about; in the best tradition of an Ibsen or a Chekov. It is so closely observed and understood that the texture of that life is intensely credible. [Roberts, S 2006, pers. comm., 11 September] But this "lived in experience" texture is not about rewriting a history as would have been the preoccupation during Apartheid. Consider this extract. THANDO: ...[Pause] Why are you so quiet? You hardly said a thing in the car on the way back. MANDISA [pouring herself a shot of whiskey]: No, I am thinking. THANDO: The hearings make you do that sometimes. MANDISA: That's all there is to it? No more. We can all go home. All is forgiven. Somebody died for God's sake. Someone is guilty. THANDO: You don't understand. That's how we chose to do it. That's the option we took. MANDISA: Then make me understand. Pretend I am an idiot. Explain it to me. A man sends a parcel bomb to two women and a child. It blows their guts out and he is not guilty of any crime. THANDO: It's not as simple as that. There are conditions to be met. MANDISA: Damn you, Thando. This man murdered Ruth First in cold blood. In the most cowardly way. Just because Joe Slovo was considered Public Enemy No. 1 by the apartheid government. A terrorist as they called him. Who the fuck gave Craig Williamson the right to murder his wife? And what did Mrs Schoon and her daughter do? How could those two women and a child overthrow the white racist government of South Africa? Remember what the lawyer said of him. He's South Africa's super spy. South Africa's secret agent abroad, with a license to kill, whom in his illustrious career, could only boast of killing two women and a child. THANDO: Mandisa, we had a choice. We could have gone for revenge. We could have gone for Nuremberg-style trials but how would that have made us different from them? MANDISA: For what in return?
THANDO: Peace, stability, reconciliation. [Kani 2002, p. 27-28, opening of Act II: Scene One] The facts are clear and concise; Craig Williamson ("Apartheid's super spy") sent a package bomb to Ruth First, the package was opened, exploded and killed First, Mrs. Schoon and her daughter. While simultaneously contributing to the growing tension between Thando and Mandisa the discussion of this historical incident places it under review. Thando supports the process being followed by the TRC, acknowledging the telling of truths by Williamson as due justice that leads to the granting of his amnesty. She supports this mode of action for the sake of national "peace, stability, reconciliation". Mandisa counters Thando's position reinforcing a "guilty, must-be-punished" standpoint; a proverbial judicial process like that of the Nuremberg trials. Earlier in the play Sipho stresses his position on the TRC. SIPHO: How was your day? THANDO: Oh! The same grind. Former soldiers, policeman and security people applying for amnesty. Saying they are sorry. Sometimes I sit there translating, interpreting, and not even feeling. Its easy to get numb you know. SIPHO: That's why I do not go anymore. It's pointless. THANDO: The truth does come out, and at least the families get to know what happened. SIPHO: Their version of what happened. THANDO: Don't start! Don't start! I know how you feel about that. [Kani 2002, p. 6, Act 1: Scene One] Kani is using theatre as a space for historical events to be cogitated. Kani supplies the reader with two quite clear ideological positions. No reasonable history text book would philosophize the murder of Ruth First in quite the same way. This debating of ideological positions would not happen within the protest genre. You have actually got three different people who have got three different views on questions of justice, ubuntu (19), reconciliation, truth, healing; all the big key words. There is no real agreement between the three characters across every single one of those concepts. They might agree on one but differ on another and that is where the shift in style is so huge. The protest genre didn't really allow for multiple points of view because it couldn't afford to do that. Ideologically it really had to clarify one particular position. [Roberts, S 2006, pers. comm., 11 September] Essentially Kani is skillfully educating the audience regarding the way personal aspirations advise political practice--aspirations new to an individual experiencing democracy for the first time. It is the relativity of truth, dependent "not merely on different locations and contexts, but on different needs, privileges, and deprivations" [Rustom Bharucha 2005, p. 366]. Kani manages to raise key questions; "How does one justify critiquing the valorization of one truth at the expense of ignoring another? And conversely, how can one not critique a particular truth if it offends one's moral
sense?" (20) Mandisa is British. Her position comes from an understanding of living in a stable society, a democracy that has been in place for over 800 years. Thando yearns for this type of social structure but concedes that revenge justice would not be constructive in building a young democracy. Towards the conclusion of this heated exchange Thando declares: "Typical of someone sitting 6 000 miles away. In a comfortable house in London, observing the whole situation with a pair of binoculars. You and your periodic amnesia, choosing to remember and forget as you wish. The policemen who killed the Pebco 3 were refused amnesty. You were there today. Derby-Lewis and Janus Walus are rotting in jail for the murder of Chris Hani. No, your anger is selective. We, who stayed here. We who witnessed first hand the police brutality. We who every Saturday buried hundreds of our young brothers and sisters shot by the police, dying in detention, dying because of orchestrated black on black violence, accept the TRC process. You have no right to question that. Mandela spent 27 years in prison. Is he asking for someone to be sent to Robben Island to spend years there as a payback? If all those who suffered can forgive, then so can you. If our President can ask us to work for a better life for all of our people, so can you." [Kani 2002, p. 29-30, opening of Act II: Scene One] Kani's own position on the matter now leaps off the page. He effectively charts his own dialectical relationship between past histories and his own lived experience. Through the carefully selected inclusion of well known political events, Kani is able to guide the reader to an enlightenment regarding the importance of the TRC, not only for a country on the brink of change, but also for every home that grapples with forgiveness. Lara Foot-Newton's strategy is less dialogical. Rooted strongly in the monological mode, Tshepang avoids getting into any debate of differing ideological positions. Perhaps its subject matter, baby rape, precludes the need for such a space--all will agree, baby rape is wrong. The play steers well clear of individual blame. It avoids highlighting one human transgressor [Marx, G 2006, pers. comm., 21 August]. In fact the play maneuvers carefully towards setting up the landscape (the environment the characters inhabit) as the principle evildoer. Lara's first incentive was that the landscape was the transgressor. The true rapist was the landscape. One of the earliest points we considered was to turn the landscape into a phallus. We lost that along the way but there was a sense that ownership of the landscape was a kind of phallic thing; the language of who owns the land and who is dispossessed. So the landscape as an active agent was central to the play. [Marx, G 2006, pers. comm., 21 August] This is the domain of personifying land and endowing it with a memory so charged that it is able to not only perform acts of violence but be the victim of acts of violence. At one point in Tshepang Simon reenacts an interchange between a Johannesburg reporter, declaring that, "This town was raped long ago. This town was fucking gang-raped a long, long, long, long time ago!" [Foot-Newton 2002, p. 40] Landscape's inanimate collation of soil, stone and vegetation becomes associated with a history, be it of blood and war, or be it of celebration and thanksgiving. Located in the recesses of one's mind is the idea that a landscape has a memory. It is the act of man to place this association, locating significant moments of human experience in a tangible place, a recognizable reality. As Simon's telling of the narrative progresses he constantly fluctuates between the present and the past. The past informs the present. This raped landscape has become impotent where its inhabitants
wander, lost, frustrated, alone, tired. "Nothingness, impotence, non-action are then the logical alternatives to violence. This world has left people with these limited, constricted options-nothingness or rage" [Hamburger in Foot-Newton 2005, p. 10] Landscape, once the victim has now become the perpetrator. Relativity draws on similar ideas of association through locale, arguing that one's environment defines one's actions. Grootboom [The Citizen, 2 May 2006, p. 1] says of his protagonist's world, "where the serial killer comes from is so important to the play. If he were operating in a different backdrop, such as the city, it would be a different kettle of fish". Environmental determinism is at work. Nothing But the Truth sets up a similar argument. By employing the realist mode Kani is making a study of a particular set of characters in a very particular environmental setting. Emile Zola [in Bentley 1990, p. 369] writes of the realist tradition that "the environment must determine the character." This determinist philosophy of the 19th century "subscribes to the position that all things--people, animals, plants, and, more abstractly, social structures and power relations-acquire their identity, in terms of their form and structure, and their future possibilities, from underlying fundamental forces from which they cannot escape. This sets up a series of interconnections or chain reactions: an inescapable set of cause and effect relations" [Roberts 2004, p. 7]. This Darwinian argument underpins the case studies; enforcing an historical social conscience so manifest in the theatre makers, that the result is a representation unable to deny the existence of a traumatized landscape, be it a New Brighton home, an RDP house in the Karoo or a township in the heart of Johannesburg. The plays are stating that these characters choose to do these things because this is the world they live in. Their actions are defined by the environment they inhabit and the memory that is located in that house, that street, that town, that township. ... The way I look at it, it all depends on how you look at it ... It's like the theory of relativity: "the appearance depends on where you're standing". From where I'm standing, this is necessary ... It's all relative, really ... I feel because I have a damaged soul, I am not wrong in doing this.The people that die, I no longer feel much for them ... It's relative, I feel ... If you look at it another way, through my eyes ... these people are sacrifices to my demons ... It's all like an indigenous African culture or society, where this tribe still sacrifice their virgins to the Gods. The West may get outraged all it wants to, but the tribesman will never see anything wrong with it because it is their culture. It is what they believe in.So you see, things are all relative ... It all depends on how you look at it ... It's all relative [Grootboom & Chweneyagae, 2006, p. 71, Epilogue] The landscape not only embodies a memory of private and public history but also of private and public violence. This characterization of the landscape as an "active agent" [Marx, Appendix] holds trauma disembodied from the self. The trauma lies separate from the individual, despite, by association, having an overwhelming effect on the actions of the individual. The result is that accountability comes into question. Relativity sets up a society where the result of any action can be traced back to some traumatic event, be it child abuse, poverty, domestic violence, unemployment, etc. Tshepang too, argues that it is a landscape that is the primary transgressor. The landscape is imaged as yet another crucible that holds trauma; the root cause of inexcusable acts. Violence then is a symptom of a deeply embedded trauma that resides both in our bodies and in our very landscape. Thematically Tshepang and Relativity perpetuate a culture / society of blame, where violence is in some way endorsed by a history of social practice. This leaves many victimizers,
criminals and transgressors almost entirely unaccountable for their actions. The society is quite literally traumatized, not the individual. Are South African theatre makers saying that acts of such outrageous violence are rooted in her very soil, the land one walks on? Are all perpetrators merely victims? Do they have 'just cause' for their actions? Has the TRC set up a precedent that negates "the principal of institutional and personal accountability" [Sachs 2002, p. 47]? Am I living in a country that encourages a culture of impunity? Regrettably, I think I am. References BAMBALELE, P. 2006. 'Grootboom nails us again' Sowetan. 7 Apr., p. 8 BENTLEY, E. 1990. The Theory of the Modern Stage. Penguin. USA. BESTER, R. 2002. Trauma and Truth. Fonds. Germany. BHARUCHA, R. 2002. Between Truth and Reconciliation: Experiments in Theatre and Public Culture Fonds. Germany. COOMBES. A.E. 2003. History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa. Wits University Press. South Africa. DE BEER, D. 2003. 'Enthralling tales of tragedy'. Pretoria News. 12 Aug. DE BEER, D. 2006. 'Edingurgh, then the world.' The Star. 19 Sept., p. 2 FOOT-NEWTON, L. 2001. Tshepang: The Third Testament. Wits University Press. South Africa FORTUNE, R. 2003. 'SA stripped of banal veneer', This Day, 9 Oct., p. 13. FOSTER, D., HAUPT, P. & De Beer, M. 2005. The Theatre of Violence: Narratives of Protagonists in the South African Conflict. HSRC Press. South Africa FUGARD, A. 1978. Statements: Three Plays. Oxford University Press. South Africa GROOTBOOM, M.P. & CHWENEYAGAE, P. 2006. Relativity: Township Stories. Dungbeetle Dramas. South Africa HAUPTFLEISCH, T. 1997. Theatre & Society in South Africa: Reflections in a Fractured Mirror. J.L. van Schaik. South Africa. HELGESSON, S. 2004. Writing in Crisis: Ethics and History in Gordimer, Ndebele and Coetzee. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. South Africa. HOMANN, G. 2002. Narration Through Image. Honours Long Essay. Wits University. KANI, J. 2002. Nothing But the Truth. Wits University Press. South Africa. KAUNDA, P. 2003. 'John Kani back with nothing but the truth.' Sunbuzz. 3 Sep., p. 16. KENNEDY, C. 2003. 'Kani play triumphs again'. The Citizen. 16 Sep., p. 24.
KENNEDY, C. 2006. 'It's all Relative'. The Citizen. 2 May., p. 1 KROG, A. 1998. Country of my Skull. Random House. South Africa. McKENDRICK, B. & HOFFMANN, W. (eds) 1999. People and Violence in South Africa: Contemporary South African Debates. Oxford University Press. South Africa MINNAAR, A. & HOUGH, M. (eds) 1997. Conflict, Violence and Conflict Resolution: Where is South Africa Heading? HSRC Press. South Africa MKEFA, Z. 2006. 'This Week's Must-see'. Sunday Times. 2 Apr., p. 16 MOREL, G. 2002. The "Melancholization" of the Witness: The Importance of Words, the Power of Images. Fonds. Germany. NAUTA, L. 2002. The Democratization of Memory. Fonds. Germany. ORKIN, M. (ed.) 1995. At The Junction. Witwatersrand University Press. South Africa. ROBERTS, S. 2004. Nothing But the Truth: A Guide for Teachers. Wits University Press. South Africa SACHS, A. 2002. Different Kinds of Truth: The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Fonds. Germany. SICHEL, A. 2003. 'A Testament to our times'. The Star, Jul. SICHEL, A. 2003. 'An innocence brutally lost'. The Star. 13 Aug., p. 13. SONTAG, S. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. Penguin. England Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. 1998. Report: Volume 1. CTP Book Printers (Pty) Ltd. South Africa Filmography And There in the Dust 2005, Short Film, DO Productions & Film Fetish, Johannesburg, South Africa. Written by Lara Foot-Newton, and co-directed by Lara Foot-Newton & Gerhard Marx Greg Homann University of the Witwatersrand Notes (1) "Narration can be defined as the transmitting of a message from the addresser to the addressed. The message is contained in the succession of events and these events are commonly known as the plot. The plot is therefore the irreducible substance of a stories diegetic elements while the narration is the way that that substance is related. Narration includes all the rhetorical devices, strategies, and conventions governing the organization of a story, fictional or factual, into sequence" [Homann 2002, p2.].
(2) Desmond Tutu in an interview with Max du Preez (Johannesburg, August 1999). Extrapolated from Coombes [2004, p. 243]. (3) The protest genre dominated new work made in South Africa between 1960 until the rise of democracy in the early 90's. This work was almost exclusively workshopped (devised) plays with the aim of conscientising the audience about the atrocities of Apartheid. This genre drew inspiration from many international theatre practitioners. Grotowski's focus on the actor's body as well as his non-reliance of Appia's plastic elements was one source of inspiration for the genre. Other inspiration came from Brecht's principles of Epic theatre and Augusto Boal's notion of "theatre as a weapon". The result was a highly vibrant, extremely physical and, far too often, didactic theatre. Throughout the 60's and into the 70's the genre was refined and by the 80's one could clearly detail the principle traits of the genre: 1) Interludes of song and dance would disrupt the narrative. 2) The actors would regularly speak in direct address to the audience. 3) The design of the production was minimal, often opting for found objects (beer crates, corrugated ion, newspaper) to dress the set. 4) English was the lingua franca but multiple other languages were integrated into the play. Sometimes this was done as a political act to disrupt the 'colonial language' and at other times this divisive use of language was purely a marker for announcing a characters racial group. 5) Real names, places, government policy and acts, historical events and inspirational leaders were announced within the performance. 6) Moving strongly away from Aristotelian theatre, the plays would avoid announcing a single protagonist. The Boal principle that "all must act" in times of political instability was preferred.
(4) "The AC (Amnesty Committee) received a total of 7116 applications for amnesty [Coetzee 2003, p.193; reported as 7115 in TRC report] by the closing date of 30 September 1997" [Foster, Haupt & De Beer 2005, p. 13]. Foster, Haupt and De Beer [2005] further comment that 5442 applicants were refused, not meeting the full requirements for amnesty set out by the AC, thus leaving
1674 applications which met the full requirements and who were heard in hearings. Applicants were refused "mainly due to lack of political motive, late or defective applications, no guilt, personal gain or no full disclosure. Most of these applicants were convicted criminals, already in prison and hoping for an early release" [Ibid.]. (5) On the 22 January 2003 Professor David Chidester of the HSRC published a conference report document under the portfolio of Society, Culture and Identity. He quotes Professor Peter Vale of the University of Western Cape's School of Government, "South Africans live in a state of 'permanent security neurosis'". Other publications by the HSRC include Crime, violence and public health. In Behind the mask: getting to grips with crime and violence in South Africa [Butchart, A. & Emmett, A.B., 2000] and A situation analysis of children affected by maltreatment and violence in the Western Cape. [Dawes, A., Long, W., Alexander, L. & Ward, C. 2006] (6) Born in the RSA was a workshop play where the six characters sat before the audience and delivered monologues. At a time of extreme censorship one of the strategies of the production was to use theatre as a means to create a living newspaper, uncensored by the Apartheid regime. Inhabiting a stage entirely coated with newspaper reports, the cast would deliver their stories of detention, espionage, and domestic life. The process of making the work was not dissimilar to Verbatim theatre, with the cast having to research their characters through interviews, observation and meetings with real people. Barney Simon's role as director was in fact a job as chief editor of the overall piece; cutting, editing and shaping the performance text. The production traveled to Europe and the USA in 1985 and 1986. (7) The dramatic tension within these one-person shows is predominantly an internal struggle between a longstanding family culture heritage or practice and the desire to break free from these constraints. The Chilli Boy comically constructs a story of an aged traditional Indian woman who has been reincarnated as a twenty-something year old white male. He begins to recall vague memories of his previous life. Shwelo Bawo tackles what it is to be the wife of a newly appointed Black business leader who, after years of relative poverty, suddenly has an abundance of wealth at her disposal. This genre is dominated by themes of identity, a disjuncture between old and new cultural practice, generation gaps and struggles to live under a new political system. (8) Pieter Dirk Uys became a household name during the 80's largely through the creation of a female character named Evita Buizadenhout (a South African take on Dame Edna). The popularity of his oneman show was unprecedented, especially in the light of his highly satirical treatment of political issues in South Africa. More recently, Pieter Dirk Uys has used his celebrity status as a vehicle to take HIV / Aids related plays to rural communities and small towns throughout the country, educating through theatre. (9) McKendrick & Hoffmann 1999, Foster 2005, TRC 2001. (10) I make this statement as the theatre going audience, especially in the dominating venues that produced new South African work, was largely a white liberal middle-class audience sheltered from the centre of political violence. (11) Nothing But the Truth and Tshepang won Naledi Awards (South African theatre awards) for best new South African play of 2002 and 2003 respectively. In 2005 Relativity was nominated for thirteen Naledi Awards.
(12) A government issued house built as part of South Africa's housing and development programme. These houses are recognizable by their 'matchbox' shape, corrugated roof and single entrance. Roughly five meters by five meters, in their standard design they consist of four rooms; a small kitchen, two small bedrooms and a bathroom. (13) The Karoo is a thinly vegetated area that extends from the centre of South Africa to its most western coast-line. It is an extremely harsh landscape where the temperatures can range from minus three degrees Celsius at night to in excess of thirty degrees by midday. (14) 'Spot checks' by policemen would commonly consist of visually assessing the tone of ones skin, using a ruler to measure the width of an individuals nose or performing 'the pencil test'. The 'pencil test' refers to the old apartheid custom of confirming the ethnic disposition of an individual by inserting a pencil into an individual's hair. 'Indigenous' Africans' hair was seen as being particularly curly--what is called "kroeshare" in Afrikaans (frizzy, wooly). Thus, it was thought, that if the pencil remained stuck in ones hair, you were 'black'. Policeman could then arrest the individual on these grounds if you were deemed to be beyond the boundaries of your specified racial grouping. (15) Ibid, p. 168 (16) Ibid, p. 168 (17) Afrikaans slang for sexual intercourse. An English equivalent would be 'shagging'. (18) Directly translated from Afrikaans, 'Houvrou' means 'whore wife'. This would be a woman who would willingly have an ongoing affair with a married man. Despite the word eluding to prostitution no financial transaction would be made. (19) Ubuntu is a commonly used term to describe a way of life that is accepting and supportive of others in a community. In its simplest definition Ubuntu could be deemed the celebration of community. In its broader usage the notion of community extends as far as to all people in the country. The word encompasses notions of brotherhood, respect, kindness and loyalty. (20) Ibid, p. 366