Now is the Time for Feminist Criticism

The political role of anti-apartheid drama cannot be underestimated. During the difficult years of its performance it was perhaps inappropriate to criticize it. In the face of the harsh conditions of theatre production, the ever-vigilant censors, and the detention and assassination of theatre workers, the imperative of progressive drama critics was to encourage anti-apartheid drama almost unequivocally. One of the most renowned genres, or subgenres, of anti-apartheid drama is the minimalist protest/resistance theatre that reached a peak during the early to mid-1980s. This subgenre may be defined by its workshop method of production; its all black male cast; its minimalist sets and costume; its high-energy performance using song, dance and mime; its use of the images of the South Africa of the eighties: the freedom song, the slogans, the toyi-toyi, the necklace, the Albert Street queue, etc. These plays took as their themes the hardships that black South Africans suffer under apartheid and their resistance to it. Plays like Woza Albert, Asinamali.l, Bopha and worker plays like The Long March form part of this subgenre. 1 In the early 1990s apartheid is by no means dead and repression continues, but the post 2 February 1990 era undoubtedly extends the space in which cultural activists can think and work. Albie Sachs's recent controversial intervention articulates and argues for this space.2

Aesthetics · Art · Body politic · Criticism · Dance · Drama · Literature · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · South African History and Culture · Theatre and Performance Studies

• Appendix

  Open Access•Dorothy Driver•The Journal of Commonwealth…•1992

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• Creative Co-Operation

  Myles Holloway•South African Theatre Journal•1993

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• The Origins of the American-Israeli Alliance

  Abraham Ben-Zvi, Abraham Ben‐zvi•The Origins of the American-Israeli…•2007

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• Modern Literary Theory. A Comparative Introduction

  Roger Cardinal, Ann Jefferson et al.•Poetics Today•1984

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