Rethinking Community Theatre: Performing arts communities in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

Community theatre in South Africa has undergone major changes from the apartheid to post-apartheid periods. From the 1960s until 1994 popular theatre was driven by the impetus of challenging the injustices imposed by the apartheid regime and raising awareness of these injustices. It was this central dynamo, as Malcolm Purkey called it, that led the most prominent South African theatre productions to have one thing in common: all were generated out of a profound and critical reaction to apartheid and its manifestations (Purkey, 1996:155). This observation holds equally true for community theatre. Especially in the 1980s and early 90s, when community theatre was most visible, politically inspired performing groups were commonplace, especially in urban areas. Whether in churches, community halls or as part of funeral processions that were themselves protests against the system, performance was a visible part of township life. The struggle against apartheid united people, especially the youth, and the goal was clear: overthrowing a system of rule that had increasingly oppressed the country's majority for more than 300 years. With democratisation in 1994, this unity of purpose dissipated and threw up the following questions: do we move beyond the reactive apartheid critique? How do we transcend the stock response and the slogan, and begin formulating a comprehensive cultural response to the times? (ibid). This paper describes some new directions and current developments that have led to a re-orientation of community theatres in three major urban centres of the country.