South African Drama and Theatre from Pre-Colonial Times to the 1990S: an Alternative Reading

By Mzo Sirayi

Mzo Sirayi has embarked on a highly impressive and daring enterprise with the
unfl inching boldness of a scholar who is driven by a passionate pursuit to set the
record straight. He manages to pull no punches and make no apologies by being true
to his convictions, especially within the context of a new South Africa. The book
adopts a largely historicized, critical and analytical perspective, which strikingly
approximates that of postcolonial theory.
Owen Seda
This new and authoritative book is an excellent addition to the few existing books
on black South African drama and theatre. South African Drama and Th eatre from
Pre-colonial Times to 1990s: An Alternative Reading takes the reader on a tour of
the indigenous as well as the modern South African theatre zones. The chapters
reverberate with echoes of Africanisation and rock on renaissance waves. This exciting
and stimulating book is transparently readable, accessible and is of inestimable value
to academics and general readers.
Patrick Ebewo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477120842

Mzo Sirayi

Mzo Sirayi, PhD, is professor of drama and cultural policy at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, South Africa. Currently, he is the executive dean of the Faculty of the Arts in the same university. He is the author of many accredited articles, chapters in books and books. He has also presented many papers in local and international conferences. He has served as a national and local cultural policy consultant. Mzo and his wife, Lindy and their two children, Inathi and Luvo stay in Pretoria, South Africa.

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South African Drama and Theatre from Pre-colonial Times to the 1990s 

An Alternative Reading

MZO SIRAYI

Xlibris Corporation, Bloomington

Copyright © 2012 by Mzo Sirayi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

First published in 2012 by

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

1     Definitional Assumptions

1.1 Introduction

1.2 What is Theatre and Drama?

1.3 What is African?

1.4 What is Africanisation?

2     Pre-Colonial African Theatre

2.1 The Roots of Pre-colonial African Theatre

2.2 The Analysis of Pre-colonial African Theatre

2.3 The Pre-colonial African Wedding Celebration

2.3.1 The Negotiations

2.3.2 The Wedding Celebration (umdudo)

2.4 Oral Narratives

2.5 The Pre-colonial Traditional Healers’ or Doctors’ Celebration

2.6 The Girls’ Initiation Celebration

2.7 The Pre-colonial Dance Gathering as Theatre

2.8 Installation Ceremony

2.9 Umemulo Celebration

3     Colonialism and Pre-Colonial African Theatre

4     African Drama from the 1880s to the 1930s

5     African Drama from the 1940s to the 1960s

6     African Drama from the 1970s to the 1990s

7     The Intercultural Trend in Contemporary African Drama

7.1 Clarification of Interculturalism

7.2 The Intercultural Trend in Contemporary African Drama

8     Conclusion

Endnotes

References

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Scholarship of research and discovery is not possible without the academic assistance and moral support of several persons. This book would not have been possible without the encouragement and assistance of many people. I wish to express my deep gratitude and appreciation to Patrick Ebewo, Owen Seda, George Mugovhani, Karina Lemmer, Jenine Groenewald and Vusi Ngema for their suggestions, insights, encouragement and profound ideas; the National Research Foundation (previously Centre for Science and Development), the German Academic Exchange Service, and University of South Africa for their financial assistance; the support of my late parents, my brothers, sisters, and relatives for their support; my wife, Lindy, and our children, Inathi and Luvo, for their love, understanding, support, and sacrifice which made it possible for me to complete this book. Last but not least, my Lord for giving me the strength and vision to undertake and complete the book.

FOREWORD

Postcolonial discourse has always observed that in cultures from across the world, theatrical performance has long been utilised as the disseminator of a dominant ideology or the place for colonized revolt.

Having recently completed a fairly lengthy project on a postcolonial reading of Zimbabwean theatre practice myself, I feel greatly honoured to have been requested by Professor Mzo Sirayi to write a brief foreword to this book.

In writing South African Drama and Theatre from Pre-colonial Times to the 1990s: An Alternative Reading, Professor Sirayi has embarked on a highly impressive and daring enterprise with the unflinching boldness of a scholar who is driven by a passionate pursuit to set the record straight. Professor Sirayi manages to pull no punches and makes no apologies by being true to his convictions, especially within the context of a new South Africa which is still in relatively very close proximity to its sad history of apartheid.

Professor Sirayi’s book adopts a largely historicized, critical, and analytical perspective, which strikingly approximates that of postcolonial theory. He uses it to grapple with the question of culture and identity in the history, manifestation and study of drama and theatre in South Africa from pre-colonial times up till the 1990s. In doing so, the book manages to foreground the rich but neglected history of African drama and theatre tracing this neglect to the twin processes of the colonial intervention in general and the experience of apartheid in particular. Professor Sirayi is at pains to make the point that the long history of apartheid and the preponderance of Europhone written drama in South Africa’s educational and research curriculum led to the systematic denigration and neglect of indigenous African language drama as well as forms of indigenous theatre performance.

The book outlines how the divide and rule tactics of apartheid policy, which were carried over into the new South Africa as some form of residual consciousness, led to a situation in which practitioners and researchers in African language drama and theatre remained largely ignorant of one another’s work, thereby allowing these forms to remain at the periphery of mainstream knowledge construction. Language thus assumed a prominent role in the construction and propagation of knowledge as there gradually arose the preponderance of English and Afrikaans language drama in terms of knowledge and research. As Sirayi points out, the universities played no small part in exacerbating the marginalisation of indigenous forms through their tendency to place Europhone language traditions at the centre of their practice and research. An impressive aspect of Sirayi’s argument is that he consistently makes detailed reference to his evidently well-researched data.

Using a fascinating and thought-provoking combination and critique of Afrocentric and Eurocentric theories, Sirayi endeavours to interrogate and to foreground the pre-colonial condition of African drama and theatre, after which he addresses the impact of the colonial encounter on the development of that theatre. Having done so, he also attempts to identify the disjunction between the traditional and contemporary trajectories of this theatre as a result of the colonial intervention. In making his analyses, Sirayi steadfastly refuses to be bound or curtailed by what he considers to be the artificial geographical and political boundaries imposed by apartheid.

Any project which sets out to unravel the sometimes vexed question of what is drama and theatre and what is not must needs tread carefully in its definitional assumptions. Sirayi, therefore, begins his text by exploring the two often interchangeable terms drama and theatre which he also differentiates in his treatise. In order to do so, he quotes a wide range of scholars and theoreticians from both Africa and the West.

I found Sirayi’s book also interesting in its survey of the whole question of who or what is ‘black’ and ‘African’, as it settles on a radical perspective of the concept of ‘black’ to refer to the black races as people of African descent who were colonised by Europeans. He, however, takes care to point out that the tendency to essentialize categories is a capacity which inheres in definitional assumptions thereby potentially undermining their efficacy.

Throughout his book, Sirayi is at pains to buttress his discussion with descriptions and analyses of African drama and theatre in South Africa. He also manages to make the essential point that a significant factor which has undermined research into and the acknowledgement of African drama and theatre is the fact that not only are these practices often embedded in the people’s lived experience, but they also take place in a multiplicity of different languages and cultural contexts thereby making it relatively easy to dismiss their provenance and their very existence. In that event, it becomes relatively simple and easy to concentrate on contemporary written or scripted drama and adopt the simplistic view that African drama and theatre is no more than an appendage of European theatre arising out of a situation of historical contact.

Last but not least, I feel compelled to acknowledge Professor Sirayi’s impressive citation of scholarly and archival sources to make his point as well as his empirical and ethnographic description and analysis of examples in order to put his point across.

Dr. Owen Seda

University of Botswana

May 2012.

PREFACE

This is a radical book. It is written from the heart. In some ways, the boat is rocked. It attempts to liberate African drama in South Africa and move it to the centre of academic inquiry. The book attempts to expose the origins of pre-colonial African theatre and contemporary African drama in South Africa. It also challenges and invalidates the hypotheses that seem to suggest that African drama in South Africa is a branch of European drama. Some examples of pre-colonial African theatre forms and contemporary African drama are analysed as case studies in order to illustrate the discussion with authentic examples. It attempts to unlock and decolonise African theatre and drama.

An attempt has been made to describe and analyse the origins and some examples of pre-colonial African theatre, including a pre-colonial wedding celebration, the oral narratives, the pre-colonial doctors’ celebration, a girls’ initiation celebration, a first-fruit festival, umemulo, and other forms of pre-colonial African theatre. The analysis shows that it is invalid to suggest that African theatre in South Africa did not and still does not exist. It also illustrates the nature of pre-colonial African theatre by outlining certain criteria that determine the theatricality of cultural performances.

Furthermore, the book examines the advent of contemporary African drama, from the 1880s to the 1990s. It demonstrates how contemporary African drama written in English and African languages developed and discusses the problems it faced. It also deals with contemporary African drama and politics. It demonstrates the extent to which some playwrights employ pre-colonial African theatre as used in contemporary African drama to challenge and expose the sociopolitical ills of the government in South Africa.

The interculturalism in contemporary African drama and its functions is also discussed. This chapter demonstrates how pre-colonial African theatre forms continue to exist in contemporary African drama. To a great extent, this chapter demonstrates an unbroken continuity between pre-colonial African theatre and contemporary African drama.

1     DEFINITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS

As a chameleon changes its colour to fit its surroundings, so the meaning of a word or concept is determined by its historical and cultural backgrounds (Sirayi, 2000).

1.1 Introduction

It is public knowledge that scholars of dramatic arts in South Africa and abroad have discussed the history of contemporary African drama in detail. Nevertheless, research on contemporary drama tends to neglect African drama written in African languages. The focus is on African drama written in English and performed in urban areas. Many schools or departments of drama in South Africa are also reluctant to move indigenous theatre to the centre of academic inquiry. Moreover, some European drama critics have made invalid claims that P. P. Breytenbach is the father of theatre in South Africa on the one hand. On the other, some argue that Gibson Kente was the father of South Africa’s township theatre. The neglect of rural areas and the distortions of history in South Africa have also been noticed by artists themselves.

The majority of artists in South Africa are in rural areas and are isolated, marginalised, and neglected by the media, schools or departments of drama, scholars of drama, private and state theatre centres, and urban cultural associations based in the so-called artistically hyperactive urban areas, especially Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, and Durban. Private and state theatre centres are also not in favour of contemporary drama written in African languages, for their focus has been and still is on contemporary drama written in English and Afrikaans. This implies that contemporary drama is restricted to drama written in European languages. Furthermore, researchers of contemporary drama in African languages tend to compartmentalise drama. Their research is dictated by the artificial boundaries that were drawn by the Europeans whose main intention was to divide and conquer. In other words, Xhosa-speaking researchers are ignorant of other contemporary drama in other African languages such as Zulu and Sotho. My experience in the field of drama has taught me that they are also ignorant of contemporary theatre written in English. Furthermore, the excessive concentration of academic attention on either English or Afrikaans drama to the near-total exclusion of the other languages serves to make English or Afrikaans drama more academically respected and researched; hence more academic articles are written in these languages, and African drama written in African languages is neglected. Many Language experts are of the view that language is an important factor, both at the level of accessibility and at the level of hegemony and privilege, as a means of communication and a carrier of culture.

This book focuses on pre-colonial traditions and colonialism and the emergence of contemporary African drama in South Africa. The approach is to observe and investigate the pre-colonial tradition and the impact of colonialism on African theatre and the development of theatrical and cultural activities among African people in South Africa, without being bound by artificial geographical and political boundaries. The book emphasises the development of contemporary African drama from pre-colonial African theatre and examines how it was cut off from pre-colonial African theatre.

Under normal circumstances, it would be reasonable to expect contemporary African drama in South Africa to have emerged and been taught in the nineteenth century. However, this was not to be. Mission schools for Africans were set up in 1799 at King William’s Town and at Lovedale in the Tyume Valley in 1824. By 1841, the colonial government had begun to give financial aid to some of these schools (Christie, 1987). However, the cultural situation was such as to make the teaching of African (traditional) drama impracticable, especially by the British colonisers who wanted to use education as a way of spreading their language and traditions in the colony, and also as a means of social control (Christie, 1987). It goes without saying that if drama had been included in the curriculum during this period, it would have been British drama which would inculcate the English language and way of life. Furthermore, any production or publication of contemporary African drama by Africans would be Eurocentric since it was the fundamental mission of the British authorities to anglicise or civilise the ‘savages’ (Majeke, 1952).

In order to demonstrate the influence of miseducation and the dominant ideology of colonial administration on notions of drama, the development of contemporary African drama will be traced from the 1880s to the 1990s. The book will conclude by advocating that the drama and theatre curriculum in South Africa be Africanised.

1.2 What is Theatre and Drama?

It is important that we attempt to define some terms in order to avoid potential confusion. This book therefore subscribes to the view that because meanings are not fixed entities, they should be viewed in context. As a chameleon changes its colour to fit its surroundings, so the meaning of a word or concept is determined by its historical and cultural backgrounds (Sirayi, 2000). It should also be mentioned that clarifying a concept, especially a historical one, is a complex task. That is why Hitchcock (1992) argues that only that which has no history is definable. This does not suggest that concepts must not be defined. As complex as the procedure is, certain terms are defined here, where necessary.

‘Theatre’ and ‘drama’ are problematic terms because of their multiple meanings. For example, according to The Oxford Companion to the English Language, the term ‘theatre’ comes from Latin ‘theatrum’, Greek ‘théatron’ from ‘theâtshai’, meaning to behold. It is a place where drama is performed. The term, like ‘stage’, is metonymically extended to drama itself, regarded as presentation rather than text.

This clarification implies that the meaning of the term ‘theatre’ was broadened to mean ‘drama’. As a result, ‘drama’ is conceived as a logical extension of ‘theatre’. Schipper (1982) writes that the term ‘theatre’ comes from the Greek word theatron indicating the place where portrayals took place, where one ‘looked on with amazement’ and where public spectacles were performed. In English, according to the Oxford Dictionary, ‘theatre’ means ‘a place for viewing dramatic plays or other spectacles; a playhouse, and sense of action, a thing displayed to view, a spectacle’. The individual pieces written for the theatre are referred to as dramas or plays. Again, the term ‘theatre’ is used to refer to the theatrical productions of a country or continent.

Schipper’s description of ‘theatre’ demonstrates that there can be no single way of describing a concept beyond the fact that every meaning should be negotiated. Such a negotiation should be historically and culturally bound. Similarly, Götrick (1984) gives various meanings of theatre, that ‘usually theatre denotes a large entity and drama a smaller part of it… Then usually ‘theatre’ denotes scenic realisations of which drama often is seen as a part, since the scenic realisation is taken to communicate approximately the same message as the drama. ‘Theatre’ is then usually defined as an action presented through role-playing to an audience.’

Götrick’s descriptions of ‘theatre’ are marked by the word ‘usually’, implying that ‘theatre’ has several meanings as demonstrated in her three different meanings. Apart from that, Schipper’s and Götrick’s definitions have a common denominator in that they present characteristics of the European dramatic genre. These features are: a play or story—form which is based on the experiences of such a community, and the action is used to communicate the message of a story by acting it out before the audience. Perhaps that is why Brockett (1964) defines the concept ‘theatre’ as existing ‘when actors perform before the audience. It presents both the outer and inner experience through speech and action. It requires many artists for its creation; the actor, playwright, the director, the scene, the designer, the costume and the light designer…’

The notion of speech is added to this understanding and description and is also used to present the message to the audience. Scenery is designed to suggest the context and setting. The playwright is the one who writes the script and takes it to the director, who directs the play by putting it on stage to be performed. The director puts together all the dramatic elements and the experiences of the story.

The above descriptions do not include other theatre traditions, such as African theatre, which has no written history. Many drama critics make use of these descriptions and definitions to dispute the existence of theatre in Africa. As a result, Mlama (1983) redefines the concept ‘theatre’ in order to include other traditions. She defines ‘theatre’ as primarily an art which is performed, involving images that are a representation of life, in the form of action or something that can be done. Action here involves an experience that embodies the mental reactions, feelings, and emotions of the characters involved. The action could be in the form of dance, mime, drama, oral narratives, and oral poetry. These are the arts that are sometimes referred to as the performing arts. Performance is a basic feature of theatre. It requires a performer to take a role by becoming another character. This character puts performance into action, which is performed