Satire: A Shifting Paradigm in Zakes Mda's Dramaturgy

Abstract

Zakes Mda's dramatic productions extend many frontiers, including polemics. Like some of his Southern African fellow-dramatists, the apartheid plays of Mda lent to the deprivation of the marginalised group a sardonic voice of condemnation that characterised the era. Most of his theatrical events were remarkable as they scanned the sordid worlds of hopelessness, disillusionment, betrayal and degradation. His dramaturgy was mostly wry, coarse and ‘dark’. In his post-apartheid plays, there seems to be a change of gear as the playwright gravitates towards satire – a blend of amusement and contempt. This study attempts to deny Mda his traditional role as a tragic and comic dramatist and situate him as a writer of satire. The aim is to demonstrate, by means of a scholarly critique of two plays – The Mother of All Eating (2002. Johannesburg: Wits University Press) and You Fool, How Can the Sky Fall (2002. Johannesburg: Wits University Press), how Mda acted as the consciousness and the conscience of his society by using satire as an instrument of censure to castigate the politically dominant groups betraying the masses in both Lesotho and South Africa.