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1981

in the Western Cape, South Africa: Permission to Play

image of Prinz Bettliegend in the Western Cape, South Africa: Permission to Play

In Chapter 6, Amelda Brand, director of the South African production, describes the challenges of exploring this story of Jewish experience with a nine-person multiracial student cast at Stellenbosch University, formerly a bastion of white Afrikaner culture. In a political moment when questions of cultural appropriation were hotly debated on campus, she and the students found permission to engage with through intense study of the history and engagement with the humour in the original script. Drawing upon Michael Rothberg's notion of multidirectional memory, she describes how they ultimately conveyed the prisoners’ world to their audiences while linking it with the complexities of their own.

Keywords: Apartheid ; Applied Theatre ; Holocaust ; Multidirectional Memory ; Musical Revue ; Workshop theatre

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References

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  13. Grosskopf, Johannes, F. G. (1932), Verslag van die Carnegie-kommisie van Ondersoek oor die Armblanke-vraagstuk in Suid-Afrika, Stellenbosch: Pro Ecclesia-Drukkery.
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  15. Michaels, Ross (2018), ‘SLUT Walk: “Not a Moment, but a Movement”’, 21 July, MatieMedia, https://www.matiemedia.org/slut-walk-not-a-moment-but-a-movement-2. Accessed 22 September 2020 .
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  17. Pirie, Gordon (1992), ‘Rolling segregation into Apartheid. South African Railways, 1948–53’, Journal of Contemporary History, 27:4, pp. 671–93.
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  18. Prendergast, Monica and Saxton, Juliana (2009), Applied Theatre: International Case Studies and Challenges for Practice, Bristol: Intellect.
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  19. Prentki, Tim and Preston, Sheila (2009), The Applied Theatre Reader, London, New York: Routledge.
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  20. Rothberg, Michael (2009), Multidirectional Memory. Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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  21. Thompson, Leonard (1990), A History of South Africa, New Haven: Yale University Press.
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  23. Van der Ross, Richard E. (1979), Myths and Attitudes: An inside look at the Coloured People, Cape Town: Tafelberg.
     [Google Scholar]
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References

  1. Adhikari, Mohamed (2006), Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community, Cape Town: Double Storey Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Ambros, Veronika (2008), ‘Prague's experimental stage: Laboratory of theatre and semiotics’, Semiotics, 168:1, pp. 45–65.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Booysen, Susan (2016), Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Brown, Kendrick (2000), ‘Coloured and Black relations in South Africa: The burden of racialized hierarchy’, Macalester International, 9:13, pp. 198–207.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Burian, Jarka M. (1977), ‘The Liberated Theatre of Voskovec and Werich’, Educational Theatre Journal, 29:2, pp. 153–77.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Clark, Michaela and Costandius, Elmarie (2020), ‘Redress at higher education institutions in South Africa: Mapping a way forward’, de arte, pp. 1–23.
  7. Corder, Dan (2015), Luister (‘Listen’), South Africa: Contraband Cape Town, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF3rTBQTQk4. Accessed 24 August 2020 .
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Costandius, Elmarie , Brand, Amelda and De Villiers, Gera (2020), ‘Redress at a higher education institution: Art processes as embodied learning’, Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning, 8:SI, pp. 92–110.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Davis, Nadia (2013), ‘“It is us”: An exploration of “race” and place in the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival’, TDR: The Drama Review, 57:2, pp. 86–101, Special Edition, The Routes of Blackface, http://direct.mit.edu/dram/article-pdf/57/2(218)/86/1823221/dram_a_00262.pdf. Accessed 26 August 2021 .74
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Fantlová, Zdenka (2013), ‘Holocaust survivor describes the music of Terezín concentration camp’, Guardian Music YouTube Channel, 5 April, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZA3vXdE6tY. Accessed 22 September 2020 .
  11. Fox-Martin, Amber (2019), ‘A feast in time of plague’, in A Cinematic Exploration of Artistic Responses by State-Funded Theatre Makers to the Apartheid State: The Cape Performing Arts Board, c. 1970 to 1990, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Giliomee, Hermann (2007), Nog Altyd Hier Gewees: Die Storie van ’ʼn Stellenbosse Gemeenskap, Cape Town: Tafelberg.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Grosskopf, Johannes, F. G. (1932), Verslag van die Carnegie-kommisie van Ondersoek oor die Armblanke-vraagstuk in Suid-Afrika, Stellenbosch: Pro Ecclesia-Drukkery.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Kamanga, Elina (2019), ‘Lived experiences of hidden racism of students of colour at an historically White University’, Doctoral dissertation, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Michaels, Ross (2018), ‘SLUT Walk: “Not a Moment, but a Movement”’, 21 July, MatieMedia, https://www.matiemedia.org/slut-walk-not-a-moment-but-a-movement-2. Accessed 22 September 2020 .
  16. Peschel, Lisa (2014), Performing Captivity, Performing Escape: Cabarets and Plays from the Terezín/Theresienstadt Ghetto , In Performance, Calcutta: Seagull Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Pirie, Gordon (1992), ‘Rolling segregation into Apartheid. South African Railways, 1948–53’, Journal of Contemporary History, 27:4, pp. 671–93.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Prendergast, Monica and Saxton, Juliana (2009), Applied Theatre: International Case Studies and Challenges for Practice, Bristol: Intellect.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Prentki, Tim and Preston, Sheila (2009), The Applied Theatre Reader, London, New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Rothberg, Michael (2009), Multidirectional Memory. Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Thompson, Leonard (1990), A History of South Africa, New Haven: Yale University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Thompson, James (2009), Performance Affects. Applied Theatre and the End of Effect, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Van der Ross, Richard E. (1979), Myths and Attitudes: An inside look at the Coloured People, Cape Town: Tafelberg.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Willemse, Hein (2016), ‘Adam Small (1936–2016)’, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 53:2, pp. 181–85.
     [Google Scholar]

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