THEATRE IN ANOTHER SOUTH AFRICA Based on a paper prepared by Robert Mshengu Kavanagh and delivered as reconstructed after discussions and submissions by members and institutions represented on the theatre committee at the Culture in Another South Africa [CASA] Conference in Amsterdam, December, 1987. 1 Theatre, like all other aspects of cultural and social life under apartheid, has always been officially reserved for the privileged few. Facilities are made available or denied on racial grounds. The people however have refused to take such discrimination lying down and out of the meagre resources available to them have created miracles. Despite all the advantages and privileges of the official theatre, it is the theatre of the impoverished, unaided, embattled people that expresses the best and most life-enhancing traditions of human civilisation in our country, Just as our people have fought against injustice and oppression with political and economic action, so cultural action and, more specifically theatre - from which we do not separate recited poetry and songs = have been part of the struggle for national liberation since the early days. We have protest plays such as H.I.E. Dhlomo's The Pass, which opens outside a dance hall or cinema in Johannesburg. A man is trying to kiss his woman: GIRL: Stop it, Stan. It is late. We might get arrested, Take me home, Come. MAN: Late! It is only ten forty-eight. GIRL: Well? Ten-thirty is curfew hour. I have no pass. MAN: Passes and woman! What an insult in our own country! We shall get avenged. The white people... GIRL: Cut out politics, It helps neither with love nor time. A few seconds later: FIRST MAN: The pick-up! SECOND MAN: Trouble boys! Our passes! THIRD MAN: The brutes! Enter two European and three African constables, and assail the men unceremoniously, FIRST WHITE OFFICER: Pass! Quick! The men are fumbling in their pockets, SECOND OFFICER: This one is drunk; The man: I am not, I understand everything, The second white officer and a black constable shake the man about, cailing him cheeky etc. The two others have produced their documents, The third gets a clap on the face before he produces his. The papers are in order. SECOND OFFICER: Passes alright. But this one is drunk and cheeky. Take him to the van. It is challenging to think that this play was written in the region of forty years ago, It ends with the central character, Edward Sithole, exclaiming after humiliating imprisonment and trial: Daily they turn innocent souls like me into defiant and cynical fatalists, reckless criminals, and even bitter and unreasoning enemies...How long, O Lord, how long! 2 1 Though this paper was democratically endorsed by the theatre committee and presented at the conference, it was excluded from the book subsequently published - Campschreur, W. and Divedal, J. eds., Culture in Another South Africa [Zed Books, 1989]. This publicaion included all the other presentations. In its place an article on South African theatre by Anthony Ackerman, a South African theatre personality living in the Netherlands, was substituted - ed. 2 Compare the ending of Gibson Kente’s play, How Long: “I am afraid unless something is done about this pettiness [i.e. over-zealous enforcement of the laws by policemen like Pelepele!], the law is going to end up with a hot potato in its hands. Can't something be done to curb the bitterness inboth young and old before it’s… TOO 1