A reflection on theatre

Notwithstanding the reforms nervously conceded by the white minority government in an attempt to ensure its own survival, apartheid is still kicking - harder than ever. South Africa has entered its third year of State of Emergency. Opposition groups have been systematically banned censorship has been increased, what remains of the rule of law continues to be eroded away, unprecedented numbers of people have been detained without being brought to trial and the police force has become a law unto itself. In past it may have Seemed over the top to apply the emotive term ‘police’ state’ to South Africa; now it seems little more than objectively descriptive. It is understandable therefore, that people outside the country are often surprised to discover that the theatre is able to criticize the system at all. It does not conform to their conception of what a police state should be. This may be a paradox, but South Africa is a country of paradoxes. The theatre has appropriated certain 'freedom’ for itself; these are limited, conditional and constantly under threat.

While theatre practitioners remain divided on the perennial question of whether theatre can be instrumental in initiating change in society, the government's mind is made up. The authorities have no doubts about the power of the written and spoken word. If this were not so, there would be no need of censorship in South Africa. Formal censorship has existed since the passage of the original Entertainments Act of 1931 and has frequently been invoked on the most ludicrous of pretexts.¹In 1963 the Publications and Entertainment Act was passed and this was replaced in 1974 by the present Publications Act. Under section 47(2) of this Act, three of the provisions whereby a work may be deemed 'undesirable' betray a conviction that art can be the cause of social change:

• (a) If it is indecent or obscene or is offensive or harmful to public morals;
• (d) If it is harmful to the relations between any sections of the inhabitants of the Republic;
• (e) If it is prejudicial to the safety of the State, the general welfare or the peace and good order. (My italics.)

This Act, in conjunction with older repressive legislation and newer provisions under the State of Emergency, puts a formidable arsenal of censorship laws at the government's disposal, and yet once again a paradox presents itself. By and large, writers do not appeal against bannings, as they feel that could be construed as an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the system of censorship, but the Directorate of Publications appeals against its own previous decisions and has taken to unbanning some works. One can only guess at their motives for doing this, but it does suggest that they feel the passage of time has diminished the intrinsic harmfulness of such works as Fanny Hill, Lady Chatterley's Lover and The Communist Manifesto. This should not be interpreted as flexibility or leniency on the part of the authorities. Under the present State of Emergency it is even an offence to leave blank spaces in newspapers to indicate that censorship has occurred.

Although this climate is hardly conducive to artistic development, theatre survives, and even flourishes, in South Africa. It has been claimed that the theatre is the last bastion of freedom of expression left in the country. Has the theatre been exempted and, if so, why? Barney Simon, director and co-author of Woza Albert! Remarked that censorship 'decisions are made from confusion rather than conviction. And it is harder to ban a success than a near-miss.'²Jacques Pereyre qualifies this by saying that this 'the emphasis in the last few years seems to have shifted from the message to the medium, or rather towards a greater balance between the two. For things can be quite as devastating when expressed in a humorous manner.'³Although the South African authorities have never been particular strong on humour, do not laugh at themselves and resent being laughed at, this theory goes a long way to explain how a play like Woza Albert! Eluded a banning, especially as the subject matter is explosive: Christ chooses South Africa to stage his Second Coming, as it claims to be a Christian country, is eventually arrested by the authorities, and at the end of the play, when he escapes from Robben Island by walking across the water, the police drop a nuclear device onto him!

Pieter-Dirk Uys is arguably the most successful and subversive satirist in South Africa. During the 1970s his plays often fell foul of censorship. When he began performing his one-man shows he made a point of getting to know the censorship law better than the Directorate of Publications. He says the government writes his scripts and the Directorate of Publications is his publicity department⁴. He invites the censors to his first nights and when they tell him they cannot attend unless a complaint has been made against the show, he informs them that he is lodging a complaint himself. To date this tactic has afforded him a fair amount of leeway, as the Directorate of Publications is shy of publicity and refers to examine potential ‘undesirable’ works and objects in camera. This is something that Pieter-Dirk Uys and many theatre practitioners in the township have turned their advantage. They work-without script and, therefore, have no text to submit to the censor for scrutiny. A consequence of this is the proliferation of ‘improvised' theatre in South Africa. The existence of a play on paper can be liability for a playwright. Athol Fugard's Master Harold ... and the Boys and Anthony Akerman's somewhere on the Border are both banned as ‘books’ and yet were both allowed as 'public entertainments'. This paradox approaches schizophrenia.

Clampdown

By the late 1950s an indigenous South African theatre had begun to emerge⁵. The jazz- opera King Kong (1959) put life in the black townships on stage in white Johannesburg and Athol Fugard's The Blood Knot (1961) was the first play to confront audiences with the 'race issue'. These productions were seminal for a number of reasons; they confronted the facts of (political) life in the country at the time, they were the result of non-racial collaboration, they demonstrated that the South African vernacular was a valid and effective vehicle for theatrical expression and their success overseas gave those people committed to an indigenous South African theatre a sense of confidence. Although neither of these works received the blessing of the authorities, they were produced at a time of relative freedom of expression. In 1963 Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Fell foul of the censor because it was deemed harmful to public morals. As the play was on a tour arranged for mixed audiences, many people speculated at the time that this was what the censor objected to.⁶After a postponement of ten weeks and some cuts in the text, the production was allowed to complete its tour. Two years later, the government amended the Group Areas Act to enforce segregation in all theatres. The times were characterized by a nationwide clampdown on all political opposition. By 1964 leaders of the recently banned ANC, like Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, had been sent to Robben Island for life and many artists and intellectuals had gone into exile. Calls were made for the international community to isolate and boycott South Africa. The government had spared no effort in plunging the country back into the Dark Ages.

1963 is a significant date in South African theatre history. It marks the beginning of a more rigorous censorship under the Publications Control Board created via the Publications and Entertainments Act. The provincial Performing Arts Councils were formed and provided with state funding to present programmes of music, opera, ballet and drama. In the main their work has been unchallenging and, perhaps predictably, provincial. 1963 was also the year the playwrights' boycott began. For as long as it held firm, it deprived commercial managements and the Performing Arts Councils of some of the latest overseas hits. In 1965 the Copyright Act was passed, which made it 'legal' to pirate texts when foreign playwrights withheld performing rights on 'ideological or unreasonable' grounds. To their credit, most theatre practitioners respected the playwrights' wishes and did not take advantage of this odious piece of legislation. Although the effectiveness of the boycott is all but impossible to measure, it certainly did not Bring about the dismantling of apartheid. However, in the long term, it should be given credit for contributing to the movement that eventually swept away segregation in theatres. The playwrights' boycott, inadvertently, did South African theatre another favour as it gave a great stimulus to indigenous play writing.

1963 was also the year that a group of black actors called the Serpent Players their first production in the township of New Brighton, Port Elizabeth. They recruited Athol Fugard as 'scribe' and director and went on to produce work that has contributed more significantly to South African theatre than anything to have anything have come out of the Performing Arts Councils. Their financial resources were minimal, but for a decade they produced work which they performed in the townships (where the Group Areas Act often prevented Fugard from attending performances) as well as in university theatres, which were 'private' and fell outside the provisions of the amended Group Areas Act. Their productions of Machiavelli’s The Mandrake and Camus' The Just were memorable, but the pinnacle of their achievement was Sizwe Bansi is Dead.

Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972] is a milestone in South African theatre. It was the result of a collaborative effort in 'play-making'⁷involving Athol Fugard and the actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona. The play walks the tightrope between poetry and propaganda⁸and succeeds in both areas. The London theatre critics in 1973 and the following year the actors received Tony Awards for their performances on Broadway voted Best New Play it. More significant than the international recognition the trio earned for their achievements was the influence play subsequently had on South African dramaturgy. This is apparent in plays like Woza Albert! And Percy Mtwa's Bopha! Both plays manage to steer clear of stilted propaganda without losing their political impact. A striking similarity between these plays, apart from their small casts, is the simplicity of design. There is little else on stage other than the stock-in-trade of agit-prop theatre - essential props, costumes and a variety of hats. This sparseness has placed special demands on the actors and has resulted in a standard of performance that deservedly commands the respect of audiences throughout the world. When asked what the determining factor was in finding the ‘style’ for Sizwe Bansi is Dead, Athol Fugard said 'to survive for its first two year in South Africa it had to be a play that you could put in a suitcase and carry around with you.'⁹. In recent years unsubsidised theatre in South Africa has demonstrated how much can be achieved with limited resources.

Market Theatre

It is doubtful if as much would have been achieved without an infrastructure of alternative theatres. The universities made a significant contribution, but the venues that effectively sustained this work were The Space in Cape Town, which was founded by Brian Astbury in 1972, and the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, which was founded by Mannie Manim and Barney Simon in 1976. The Space took advantage of a loophole in the Group Areas Act which made it possible to present controversial work to racially mixed audiences: it operated as a 'club' with a membership, and not as a public theatre. Plays by Pieter-Dirk Uys and Athol Fugard premiered there, as did Fugard's work with the Serpent Players, The Market Theatre, which has always been open to racially mixed casts and audiences, was initially the house theatre for The Company, founded by Barney Simon in 1974. It is also a receiving theatre for topical and socially critical productions from all over the country. It has become an important showcase for unsubsidized, independent theatre, as well as a launching pad for productions that tour internationally.

The Performing Arts Councils do not send their plays on international tours.¹⁰Not only would such a tour be unacceptable in terms of the cultural boycott, but it is inevitable that their work would be regarded as equivocal. That is not to say that nothing has changed within these bodies in recent years. In 1975, following a prolonged boycott, the Nico Malan Theatre in Cape Town opened its doors to all races. Other Performing Arts Councils have followed suit and now racially mixed casts, as well as politically controversial productions, are not altogether unusual. This is not in response to directives from above, but the initiative of a new generation of theatre managers and artistic directors.

Theatre in South Africa would appear to be thriving. There is no longer enforced racial segregation on stages or in auditoria. There has been a marked increase in the indigenous dramatic output. Workers within the labour movements and at political rallies perform for and play. There has been an increase in the Number of festivals and awards to encourage new talent. A new generation within the Performing Arts Councils has started to flex its muscles. And now that television cameramen cannot send us reports of what is happening inside the country, there is a greater demand for 'anti-apartheid' plays. In the Adapt or Die, Asinamali, Bopha! District Six, Sarafina! Sophiatown Strike the Woman has all been performed on stages throughout the world.

This international recognition may well have given South African theatre a small measure of protection, but times are always changing. When somewhere on the Border was performed in South Africa last year, it looked as though Directorate of Publications had taken a back seat, but the authorities had other means of intimidation at their disposal. On the opening night in Cape Town military police arrived at the theatre and confiscated the army uniforms used by actors as costumes and when the play ran in Johannesburg two of were hospitalized by a gang of right-wing vigilantes. (Needless to say, the police never caught the culprits.] A performance of Michael Picardie's Shades was stopped at the University of Durban-Westville, because security policemen were sitting in the audience filming with video cameras. Piekniek by Dingaan, an award-winning satire on Afrikaner holy cows presented at this year Grahamstown Festival by CAPAB, came under threat of internal censorship. The ensuing debacle resulted in the resignation of the director and the sacking of the head of drama. It has also put paid to the notion that any real artistic independence will be tolerated within the Performing Arts Council.

The censor has also been considerably more active recently. In May 1988 both Heiner Muller's Quartet and Chris Pretorius ' Sunrise City were banned. The Appeal Board, however, did lift the bans subject to certain restrictions.¹¹Minister of Home Affairs Stoffel Botha recently insinuated that an open season would be declared on theatre because of "a new tendency on the part of dramatists and producers to exceed existing norms and to openly challenge and shock the sensitivity of reasonable members of the community'.¹²He warned that censorship was under-utilized weapon against plays 'focusing on themes of alleged oppression and police brutality, conscription, alleged social and political injustices and the like. Can the aims and purposes of such plays be anything else than creating a spirit of discontent, unrest, civil disobedience, insurrection and in the final instance, revolution?'.¹³It is unlikely that any theatre practitioners would overstate their aims in such a crude manner, but now that Stoffel Botha has done it for them the last bastion of freedom of speech is under siege.