Doctoral Degrees (Drama)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Drama) by browse.metadata.advisor "Schauffer, Dennis"

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    Selected black African dramatists South of the Zambezi
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2003-04) Litkie, Celeste Avril; Hauptfleisch, Temple; Schauffer, Dennis; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Drama.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Late twentieth century theatre studies has been characterised by an expansion of the notion of theatre to encompass an enormous variety of performance-based activities. A range of pioneering academics and practitioners have moved beyond the old European-American paradigm of the literary theatre, to recognize the unique qualities of the performance as a theatrical artefact in its own right. One of the by-products of this paradigm shift has been what some would term the death - or at least diminution - of the dramatist or playwright. Another has been the (re-)discovery of what is vaguely referred to as "African theatre". This study had no intention of taking up the argument about the precise forms and processes that belong under that rubric, nor the many problems associated with such categorizing. It has a much more mundane aim, namely to look at one form of play creation - formal playwriting - in a specified region of the vast African continent, south of the Zambezi. The focus is very specifically on published or written texts, created and produced in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique. For a variety of reasons not all these countries could be studied, but enough material was found to arrive at some initial conclusions. In this respect, this is a pioneering study, since no such comparative survey has yet been done. Based on a previous pilot study by Dennis Schauffer at the University of Durban-Westville, the study utilises a process model of the theatrical system proposed by Temple Hauptfleisch (1997) as a frame of reference and a range of four basic kinds of data to answer a number of questions to study the writers and their works. The materials utilized are: 1. Play scripts 2. Biographical data, press cuttings, video recordings, articles. 3. Interviews and interviewer's journal entries. 4. Studies of the socio-political milieu. Data was gathered on 12 writers and their works, as well as some substantial information on community theatre and related forms in the region. The primary authors discussed in some detail are Gibson Kente, Zakes Mda, Gcina Mhlope, Matsemela Manaka, Fani-Kayode Osazuwa Omoregie, Freddy Philander, Vickson Tablah Hangula, Tsokolo Muso (Tjotela mor'a Moshpela), Sonny Sampson-akpan, Andreas Mavuso, and Sipho Mtetwa. With this data the study seeks to address a number of questions concerning playwriting in the sub-continent. These include: 1. a comparison of existing performance forms and their relationships to oral traditions; 2. the influence of socio-political contexts on the works produced; 3. the relationship between plays and the other media, such as film and television; 4. a consideration of audiences (or target audiences) and their impact on the form and content of works; 5. the impact of the nature of, access to and availability of venues; 6. the role played by funding and relationships to state institutions; 7. language choices and their impact on the arts; 8. And finally, the interesting question of cross-cultural encounters and their influence on the forms of theatre in the region. This set of questions provide the context for a study of the variety of theatrical and performance output generated in Africa, south of the Zambezi, and to identify some common and/or divergent cultural influences in the works of the selected black African dramatists in the southern sub-continent of Africa. As expected, one such common denominator was the oral tradition, the other was the colonial heritage of western, Eurocentric theatre and literary practices. The dynamic between these traditions proved to be a point of some interest, but also posed many methodological problems. Two other major factors in many of the countries have proven to be the lack of a strong theatrical infrastructure and divergent audience expectations, which have led to a proliferation of non-formal and applied theatre processes (e.g. in political theatre, popular theatre, community theatre, theatre for development, etc), which in their turn pose their own methodological problems for researchers. In the final analysis, given the restraints under which the candidate had to work, the study could only look at some interesting but selected authors, who in their works seem to illustrate some of the variety and energy of the widely dispersed region. Hopefully in doing this it provided a few broad indications of important trends. More importantly perhaps, the study did identify a number of areas for future research. It would seem that, besides a tremendous need to do considerably more work on the collection and archiving of data on theatre and performance systems, practitioners and practice in Southern Africa, there are at least three additional areas of research that require particular attention: 1. the development of an appropriate theatre research methodology for application in the region; 2. a study of the role played by foreign nationals; 3. the setting up of a national and continent-wide database on theatre in Africa.