DURBAN DIALOGUES DISSECTED

2020

Theatre Journal, 2002

2020

African Sun Media eBooks, 2020

Contemporary Theatre Review, 1999

Triple book review: Experiments in Freedom: Explorations of Identity in New South African Drama by Anton Krueger At This Stage: Plays from Post-apartheid South Africa edited by Greg Homann Armed Response: Plays from South Africa edited by David Peimer

Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays

If literature holds up a mirror to society, nowhere is this truer than in South Africa. South African literature, from colonial times, and especially through the apartheid era, has shown up the society to itself. The watershed events of South African history after 1948, when the National Party came into power-the Sharpeville Massacre in 1961, the Soweto Riots in 1976, and Steve Biko's assassination in 1977, to name a few-all served, especially, to influence the output of literary writings in different genres, and also determine the direction of the writings. South African theatre has particularly played this critically reflective role in the context of our history. The key plays in South African theatre have all zeroed in on living under apartheid-Fugard's

Critical Arts, 1981

International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies

This article explores the ways in which Anglophone dramas in postcolonial South Africa became a tool of political and protest theater. It examines the emergence of Anglophone theater, explores its development into political praxis and discusses the performance or non-performance contexts, as well as their specific socio-political milieux, with reference to the select plays from South Africa. These plays are compelling as they characterize specific tensions internal to South Africa, while alluding to colonial legacies and global coercion. Historicization is a crucial phase in this study and the key part of the methodology that establishes their political and aesthetic significance, both at the time of performance and after. The central argument of the article is that Anglophone theater of South Africa is subjected to and bound bysocio-political and cultural dynamics of the country; the emergence of political and protest theater is often caused by subtle or overt subterfuges of biopolitics exercised internally within this postcolonial territory.