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Context: the island socio-political and economic backgroundThe rise of political and protest theatre
What led to the emergence of South African Protest Theatre?
In the 1970s
- Radical political consciousness emerged in Black South African theatre
After 1976 Soweto protests
- Younger generations felt a need
- Theatre that reflected their political aspirations
- Statement of disapproval or disagreement
Why is Protest theatre different to political theatre?
Black playgoers felt that despite the high quality and strength of protest against
the machinery of apartheid, the plays were too complex in structure and
expression and too unmusical, to be worth seeing more than once.
The main characters were not proud or admirable enough to represent black
sufferings, values and aspirations.
Protest theatre – shows the oppressor the results of their oppression
Theatre of resistance – aims to mobilise the oppressed
Black consciousness movement
Some theatre practitioners went beyond protest.
- General struggle for culture identity and political conscientization
- Broad based black political movement
- Re-affirm black identity and dignity
- In the face of the onslaught from apartheid legislation
- All forms of political and economic discrimination and oppression
- Create a link between cultural and political liberation
- Political means denied – cultural means used to express aspirations
- Unity
Theatre of Resistance
Aims of mobilizing the oppressed
- Explore means of fighting against oppression
- Propagate message
- Agitate for action
- Vehicle for sharing perceptions + insights (among oppressed)
- Altering perceptions
At its worst it became:
- Series of slogans denouncing the oppressor
- Extolling the virtues of the leaders of the liberation struggle
Agitprop
,The word is derived from “agitation” and “propaganda”, the theatre of resistance
was essentially agitprop.
Agitation Propaganda
Stir up public opinion Information
Connected to social or political issue Ideas
Protest marches Statements
Demonstrations Rumors
Speeches Spread to help cause
Newspaper articles Negative connotations
Call for change Focuses on one side
Purpose is to awaken awareness Tool of totalitarian regimes
Persuade intended audience to take Spread false or exaggerated claims
action
- Took theatre to the people (warehouses, factories, villages, farms, streets)
- Rejection of conventional theatre practices (lights, scenery, costumes)
- Bare stages, minimum props, multi-functional, symbolic
- Single identifiable costume
- Caricature characters
- Performed short sketches (attention)
- Visual elements (clowning, acrobatics, dance, song)
Protest theatre
General theatrical/political term which refers to all kinds of theatre used to
protest political and economic inequities and social ills. It is a blanket term.
- Protest against
- Call for defiance and change (apartheid-state)
- Wide variety of forms and approaches
Protest theatre protested against the harsh realities of living under apartheid:
- The restrictive laws
- The poverty and severe censorship
- The dehumanizing of people
- The sense of isolation and the negation of self-worth
- The loss of identity
Protest theatre
, Aims of protest theatre
- To change and reform society
- To educate and to instruct
- To highlight topical issues
- To point towards new development/life/existence
- Theatre for change
- The involvement of trade unions
Characteristics of protest theatre
- Contains strong political messages and statements
- Voices the feeling and frustrations of whomever is represented in the
play
- Some are scripted/others workshopped
- The audience is compelled to sympathize and re-evaluate their opinions
- The focus is not on what should be learnt but what should be unlearnt
- The emphasis is on awareness
- Done by the people for the people
Staging of protest theatre
- Open staging
- Any venue
- The use of slogans/posters/placards
- Close actor/audience relationship
Playwrights intentions
Fugard is eager to deal with the immediate social and political problems and he
would draw directly on experience. These experiences would be embodied in
dialogue, action and setting. Most of Fugard’s plays are about a particular aspect
of the oppressive and degrading race laws.
- Raise awareness – racial oppression
- Feel guilt and shame for mans inhumanity to man
- Expose an extreme situation (brutality/degradation/despair)
- Spread message of hope
- “bear-witness” – many voiceless people living in oppression
- Shatter white complacency and its conspiracy of silence
Man’s inhumanity to man, but also of the secret pain we all inflict on
each other in the private recesses of our closest relationships”
Context
- Final piece in New Brighton phase
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