Description
A political satire, this play imagines the second coming of Christ (Morena) to South Africa during the apartheid. This Student Edition features commentary and notes by Temple Hauptfleisch.
About the Author
Percy Mtwa was born and bred in Wattville, Benoni. In 1979 director Gibson Kente gave him a role as singer/dancer in Mama and the Load, which played at the Market and Baxter Theatres and toured South Africa. Mbongeni Ngema was born in Umkumbane, Durban. He wrote and presented a play, Too Harsh, appeared in Kessie Govender's Working Class Hero, then wrote and, with Kessie's help, directed The Last Generation. In 1979 he came to Johannesburg and approached Gibson Kente for work, finally getting a character role in Mama and the Load, where he met Percy Mtwa with whom he would collaborate, along with Barney Simon, on Woza Albert. Barney Simon, founding Artistic Director of the Market Theatre, was born in Johannesburg. After backstaging for Joan Littlewood in the late 1950s, he joined Athol Fugard in Johannesburg's Dorkay House Rehearsal Room where The Blood Knot was first staged. He directed Fugard in Krapp's Last Tape and the first production of Fugard's own Hello and Goodbye. In 1974 he founded the Company with Mannie Manim, which made its home in Johannesburg's old Market in 1976. He was the three-time winner of the Breytenbach Epathlon for best director. Barney Simon died in 1995. Temple Hauptfleisch is a retired South African drama teacher, playwright and theatre researcher and historian. Currently Emeritus Professor at Stellenbosch, he is the former head of the Centre for SA Theatre Research (CESAT - 1979-1987), Chair of the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department (1995-2005) and director of the Centre for Theatre and Performance Studies at Stellenbosch (1994-2009). Founder-editor of the South African Theatre Journal (1987-) and its editor for 27 years, and the project leader and editor-in-chief of the online Encyclopaedia for South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT - 2005-). He has served on various international editorial boards for publishers and journals, and has published more than eighty works on South African theatre.
Reviews
The most politically potent show ever staged in South Africa * Observer *
Book Information
ISBN 9781350025080
Author Percy Mtwa
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Methuen Drama
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 138g