South Africa’s Serpent

Abstract

South Africa’s laws, protecting the government’s policy of apartheid and white supremacy, prohibit black people from obtaining employment as artists. So, the Serpent Players, a group of 25 to 30 black actors who work in collaboration with white playwright Athol Fugard in Port Elizabeth, work at other jobs. The group survives by wriggling through loopholes in the law — truly an underground theatre, without access to the press, performing before invited guests in private homes loaned to them for the occasion.