Department of Drama

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Browsing Department of Drama by Author "Borthwick, Hannah"

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    When the known world dissolves : representations of the white male on the South African stage in the transitional years (1980-2000)
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-04) Borthwick, Hannah; Hauptfleisch, Temple; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Drama.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study explores the representation of the white male character in various South African plays from the period 1980–2000, a time when South Africa was experiencing severe changes and upheavals as a result of the crumbling of the apartheid state and the dawning of a new, democratic and „free‟ South Africa. Taking into account a number of appropriate philosophical and sociological theories (for example 20th century western concepts of whiteness and masculinity), the thesis looks at the way in which such an enormous social and political transformation was able to influence the life and reality of the individual white man and his reactions to it. By considering the interaction of collective and personal identity within the framework of a changing South Africa, the study explores some of the ways in which such interactions may create insecurity and threaten the foundations of a particular cultural or ethnic group. . The focus of the study is an analysis of selected works by playwrights Paul Slabolepszy, Greig Coetzee, André P. Brink and Deon Opperman, and focusses specifically on three predominant themes identified in the plays, namely: recognition, dangerous insecurity (ressentiment) and the ever-present past. These themes are used to explore and illustrate a particular cultural group‟s psyche (as well that of its individuals members) during a specific period in South African history and, to a certain extent, their attempts to redefine their identities. These are characters (and thus, one may infer, playwrights) who were all trying to make sense of a tumultuous past, an insecure present and an uncertain future, and trying to understand their own contribution to and place in it. The final conclusion is that the South African white male was going (is going?) through a form of collective, existential, “mid-life crisis”, one in which they needed to accept that they had become outnumbered and were in a sense alone in their crisis. They were forced to compromise their collective identity in this new reality, a situation epitomised by the way they seek to construct (new) personal identities in order to adapt. A final conclusion is that this is an ongoing process clearly displayed by the new work on offer at contemporary arts festivals.