Plays, Politics and Cultural Identity Among Indians in Durban

Abstract

The paper analyses how the lively tradition of Indian community theatre has reflected and contributed to the formation and contestation of identities among Indians in Durban since the 1960s. Starting from a popular piece of political satire, Mooidevi's Muti , staged in 1998, the recent history of South African Indian theatre is described as the emergence of a canon: two main genres, political satire and the family drama, that since the 1960s have developed within an 'Indian public sphere', and which today seem to constrict the opening of this rich tradition towards other forms of theatrical expression. It is argued that this closure of theatrical forms correlates with the broader tendency towards 'ethnic closure' among Indians in post-apartheid South Africa.