Woza South Africa! A Postcolonial Public Sphere

Abstract

One night during the apartheid era in South Africa, two actors on a township tour sat on a crowded cast bus and talked about creating a play that would go beyond the broad entertainment of township musicals to address some of the more serious concerns of their lives. After hours of discussion, Percy Mtwa and Mbongeni Ngema found their subject in the pages of the Bible. What would happen to Jesus Christ, they speculated, if he returned to South Africa? How would the South African government, whose apartheid policies were supposedly justified by something called ‘Christian Nationalism’, react to the Second Coming? Such was the genesis of one of South Africa’s most successful dramatic works, Woza Albert! Developed in collaborative workshops with Barney Simon, then artistic director of the Johannesburg Market Theatre, Woza Albert! performed to sold-out venues in both white urban centres and black townships in South Africa, was an acclaimed entry in the 1982 Edinburgh Festival, had a successful London run that fall, and eventually toured Germany and the United States, playing to standing ovations every evening. The play’s dramatic and musical energy, innovative style and forceful anti-apartheid stance proved remarkably successful both at home and abroad.