English, Media and Performance Studies

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Some aspects of the nature and incidence of stuttering among Indian primary school children in Durban.
(1971) Jithoo, Roychand.; Sneddon, Elizabeth.
Stuttering has been a complex problem ever since the early history of man. It has been found to exist in some cultures to a greater extent than in others. In certain primitive cultures the phenomenon of stuttering was reported to be unknown, yet when members of these cultures were influenced by western environments some incidence of stuttering occurred among them. The influence of the environment therefore cannot be disregarded when considering causes of stuttering. Although much research has been done by speech pathologists among various world cultures they have by no means completed their task for there are many groups, living in a variety of societies, which are yet to be studied. The present rudimentary investigation into stuttering among Indians living in Durban may be regarded as a contribution to the knowledge that has already been accumulated.
Studies in structure : an analysis of four of the novels of George Eliot.
(1973) Cahill, Audrey Fawcett.; Sands, Raymond.
No abstract available.
The technique of the major novels of Joseph Conrad.
(1978) Zaal, J.
No abstract available.
A new species of writing : a study of the novels of Samuel Richardson.
(1978) Lenta, Margaret Mary.; Edgecombe, Terence.
No abstract available.
Some aspects of the dynamic process of creativity with special reference to the choreographer and director in the theatre.
(1979) Hagemann, Frederick.
No abstract available.
Shakespeare and scepticism.
(1980) Olivier, Theo.;
No abstract available.
In a manner of speaking : some aspects of structure, including narration, in the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell.
(1980) Daymond, Margaret Joan.
No abstract available.
The international novel : a study of its origins and emergence as a genre in nineteenth century American fiction.
(1982) Maltz, Minna Anne Herman.; Sands, Raymond.
No abstract available.
Myth in the novels of Herman Melville.
(1984) Maltz, Harold Paul.; Shum, Julia.
Myth in the Novels of Herman Melville: A Study of the Functions of the Myths of Eden, the Golden Age, and Hero and Dragon in Three Novels of Herman Melville--Typee, Moby-Dick, and Billy Budd, Sailor. In Typee, Melville evokes myths of Eden and the Golden Age to present a critique of civilization. This thesis focusses on the presence and function of contrasting elements of these myths--Eden and the Fallen World, the Golden Age and Age of Iron--in the novel. These myths facilitate assessment of civilization, and heighten the significance of Tom and Toby's escape from the Dolly and their longings for the island's delights. These myths also link the primitive Typees and the Dolly's sailors, and enhance the significance of the young sailors escape from Typee. In Moby-Dick, Melville again presents a critique of civilization, again exploiting contrasting elements of the Eden myth. This myth provides an interpretative framework for specific sets of contrasting symbols (some encountered in Typee), and for the contrasted fates of Ahab and Ishmael--fates made possible owing to Melville's conception of human nature, in Moby-Dick more complex than in Typee. Melville exploits further mythical material in investigating man's confrontation with evil. The prediction in Genesis of enmity between the "seed" of Eve and the Serpent serves several functions: it illuminates Ahab's sense of Moby Dick as Evil incarnate and Ahab's consequent adoption of a mythical role in hunting Moby Dick, while Christian interpretation of the prediction affords grounds for an ironic judgement of Ahab. Allusions to myths of Hero and Dragon encourage the reader to assess critically Ahab, Moby Dick, and the hunt. In Billy Budd, Sailor, the bipartite structure of the novel determines a use of myth in the first part different from that in the second. In the first part, Melville coalesces an element of the Eden myth--the confrontation of Adam and the Serpent--with the outcome of the confrontations in the myths of Hero and Dragon. In the second part, the expectations raised by the patterning of this composite myth are dashed, thereby exacerbating the poignancy of Billy's fate. The Eden myth also provides an interpretative framework for specific sets of contrasting symbols, thereby enabling Melville to present a critique of civilization--a study of man's condition in the Fallen World.
A critical study of Olive Schreiner's fiction in a historical and biographical context.
(1985) Wilhelm, Cherry Ann.; Voss, Tony.
Olive Schreiner's fiction is best understood in the context of her colonial situation : she experienced central Victorian spiritual dilemmas and social constrictions, but refracted through a rural colonial culture. A complex position of power and powerlessness, superiority and inferiority, individual assertiveness and self- abnegation, is the crux of her fictional world. Her formative years were spent within a culturally deprived rural environment in a dependent position as servant/governess, yet her reading gave her access to leading Victorian intellectuals who were trying to create a new synthesis out of the conflict between Darwin's revolutionary theory and faith in a God-given and unquestionable order, between science and faith, between a new spirit of 'realistic' enquiry and Christian dogma. The problem for the colonial novelist is similar to that of the provincial novelist : the writer seeking intellectual stimulus and cultural enrichment at the metropolitan centre often has to forego a sense of community, and a youthful emotional bond with a nourishing, indigenous landscape, frequently the original source of a sense of spiritual harmony and an underlying order in the universe itself. The colonial novelist thus expresses a tragic breach between individual and community, and a sense of irreconcilable needs. This process is best exemplified in the careers of women, because the difficulty in finding a suitable partner, and a fulfilling marriage, exemplifies the radical problem of reconciling nature and nurture, instinct and social convention. Solitariness, and death, can become the conditions of integrity. Nevertheless, Schreiner's analysis of social problems becomes more detailed and incisive as she develops, and social reform offers a way out of a doomed conflict. Schreiner's childhood reading of the Bible and her evangelical inheritance were crucial to her life and fiction. In both a spirit of charity and self-sacrifice was central, and contended with a popular Victorian view of Darwinism which saw nature as a struggle for survival, a competition between the 'fittest' in which power would be decisive. Schreiner's visionary optimism about moral and social progress was checked by a sense of natural cruelty, historical repetition and decadence, and the early influence of the doctrine of 'original sin'. Schreiner saw her fiction as having a social mission, but the mission could only be accomplished by a novelist true to her individual vision, and expressing her 'self' by aesthetic means. A novel should grow 'organically' from the artist's individual vision, and thus be analogous to a living and unfolding natural world, developing according to its awn inherent laws. Schreiner understood Art and Nature as complementary orders. Her theory of art is thorough and internally consistent : writing should be simple, sensuous, and passionate, and should reconcile social function and artistic design. The power and directness of colonial art reunited her with the Victorian metropolitan centre, though she experienced Victorian social issues in a particular, intensified form in South Africa. Nevertheless, her reponse to South African landscapes, her sense of its 'will to live' at the same time stimulated her own power of creativity, which would counter the stultifying effects of rural isolation and the social restraints on, and exploitation of uneducated women. Schreiner's spirit of militancy and a reliance on the individual conscience stemmed from her evangelical forebears, though she translated their religious non-conformism into social protest in the South African context. Her family was part of the missionary wing of Imperialism and at the same time part of the current of liberalism and enlightenment which clashed with a conservative slave-owning society in South Africa. Her own fiction expresses the plight of the 'slave' in a sequence of metaphorical transformations. The figures of the child, the young women, the servant, the convict, the slave, the prostitute, the black man and the black women interrelate and modify a simple portrait of victimization. Her fiction also draws on the homiletic tradition of evangelical literature,which used deathbed scenes as the carriers of a moral message. Schreiner's writing displays a characteristically Victorian range of non-fiction and fiction, pamphlets, letters, diaries satires, dream-visions, autobiographical fragments, and ambitious full-Iength novels. Her writing displays the Victorian concern with autobiographical and confessional literature as well as direct political and social intervention in a corrupt society. She shaped her life more and more consciously into a variety of narrative forms, from erotic fantasies and escapist to more outwardly-directed satirical and reformist fiction. Her early experience of homelessness economic and social dependence on strangers, as well as sexual vulnerability to men, was crucial in her formative experience. But here, too, she overcame a tendency toward masochism and narcissistic self-reflection to portray a women whose survival and growth expressed the strong side of Schreiner's vigorous and mature feminism. Schreiner's fictions, from the fragment "Diamond Fields" and the youthful Undine, to the early 'masterpiece' The Story of an African Farm, to the political satire Trooper Peter Halket and the encyclopedic though unfinished From Man to Man, display great narrative fertility, and an ability to modify and develop her own characteristic themes, images, and characters. An early multiplication of female victims gave way to the rich oppositions and multiple different-sex protagonists of African Farm, and the concentration yet divergence of the double-female protagonist situation of From Man to Man. All of her fictions move along a spectrum from protest to vision, realism to dream/allegory, and she inverts - and adapts the proportions in accordance with the aims of each particular work. Her fiction shows variety, creative richness, yet a growing economy of means and artistic control of genre. Her development as a novelist was away from a narcissitic focus on the self as victim towards a commitment to suffering forms of life outside the self. She also displayed a growing commitment to the social analysis of human suffering, and to South Africa as the crucible in which she had been formed, as a landscape which offered her an image of harmony to set against social malfunction, and as the strongest source of her own creativity.
Explorations in drama, theatre and education : a critique of theatre studies in South Africa.
(1987) Dalrymple, Lynn I.; Tomaselli, Keyan Gray.; Preston-Whyte, Eleanor.
This dissertation explores the potential of theatre studies to develop a pragmatic and relevant pedagogy for South African students and adults. The contention is that the dominant paradigm as conceptualized in the discipline ‘Speech and Drama’ is outdated. Section One offers a critique of this paradigm and an analysis of the premises that supported its foundation and consolidation in English-language South African Universities. Following this a search is instituted for a methodology of theatre studies which is both appropriate to present circumstances and which could encompass all South Africans. In Section Two, a survey of theories of performance is undertaken because a methodology of theatre studies is, of necessity, linked to performance theory. The pioneering contributions of some South African scholars are explained and evaluated as part of a larger body of theoretical analysis in both the humanities and the social sciences. In Section Three, the search for a methodology is approached from a different angle. The researcher offers a detailed descriptive analysis of her own work in the Department of Speech and Drama at the University of Zululand both among students and in a nearby rural community. This serves to explore the kinds of learning that occur through practical involvement in drama, theatre and specifically playmaking. These learning processes are related to the distinctive functions in drama and theatre, namely the heuristic, communicative and interpretative functions. The work is connected to progressivist trends in education and participatory research in the field of adult education. One of the intentions behind the work was, indeed, to challenge commonsense perceptions and discover the extent to which individuals are ‘victims of their own biography’. This challenge is specifically related to anti-feminist, racist and class perceptions. The dissertation concludes with recommendations for a learner-centred approach to theatre studies that is rooted in personal experience and consciously mediated through refined and extended conceptual categories. The tension between the development of students’ analytical powers and communicative skills is explored and a semiotic approach to analysis is posited. The importance of extending university work into the wider community is discussed and related to a rural development project involving playmaking, undertaken to research the potential of learning through drama for adults.
The immanent voice: an aspect of unreliable homodiegetic narration.
(1988) De Reuck, Jennifer Anne.
Unreliable homodiegetic narration presents a unique mode of narrative transmission which demands the encoding within the text of 'translational indices', that is, signifiers of several kinds which justify the reader/receiver in over-riding the sincere first person avowals of the apparent mediator of the discourse. The argument establishes the presence of an epistemologically primary 'immanent' narrative situation within an ostensibly unitary narrative situation. Such a stereoscopic perspective upon the presented world of the literary 'work provides the reader/receiver with a warrant for a rejection of the epistemological validity of the homodiegetic narrator's discourse. Moreover, the thesis advances a typology of such translational indices as they occur in the dense ontology of the literary work of art. The narratological theory of unreliable homodiegetic narration developed in the first half of the dissertation is applied in the second half to selected exemplars of such narrative transmissions, demonstrating thereby the theoretical fecundity of the model for the discipline of narratology.
Performance polemics in a plural society : South African theatre in transition.
(1988) Herrington, Sandra.
"It was clearly the Government (by a great section of the electorate) that brought politics into the theatre, and we, the producers, the actors, the theatre-goers must pay the price for it." Alan Paton. This thesis attempts to analyse the way South African Theatre is developing against a background of social transition within a political framework which has enforced a policy of separate development based on racial distinction and ethnicity. Signs of political reform are beginning to show - not only as a result of pressure from within and without - but also because economic interdependency between the groups is breaking down barriers as the third world sector of the population aspires to the attractions of the first world urban sector. Polemical issues in the performing arts, which have risen out of the prevailing socio-economic climate, range from global attempts at cultural isolation of South Africa to such pragmatic matters as absorbing into actor-training programmes the various sectors of the community with their particular ethnic and linguistic identities preserved in an apartheid system. The research takes into account the history of the South African people and the various modes of theatre which have evolved as a result of natural and, later, imposed segregation of the various cultural groups. It examines, too, the dominant cuItural trends imported from Europe which have formed an infra-structure for South African theatre from training programmes to theatre managements, as well as criteria for critical assessment of theatre as a codified form of dramatic performance. It analyses the politically sensitive but vital issue of arts funding where most sponsorship emanates from public sources. It looks at actor-training programmes in terms of cultural service to the community and the diverse needs of the performance industry and takes into account the changing focus in some tertiary drama departments in an effort to adapt to transitional social conditions. It also takes cognisance of the prevailing mood of social consciousness amongst those artists who sense the need to move towards a theatre which expresses the collective experience of the South African situation. Whether this is possible in a country as culturally diverse as South Africa and whether the socio-political climate and reform measures which the government has adopted are conducive to the growth of a genre of theatre uniquely South African in its synthesis of endogenous and exogenous traditions - a theatre that will have cross-cultural appeal - is one of the major thrusts of this research.
A critical commentary on the Four quartets of T.S. Eliot.
(1989) Hall, Ronald Felix.
This sequential reading of Four Quartets attends closely to form, rhythm, image, idea, syntax, tone, and mood, examining the relations of one to another and of one part of the cycle to another. It draws on earlier studies which are mainly thematic, but it concentrates primarily on analysis of the poetry itself. Such a commentary does not set out to prove a single hypothesis, and therefore does not lend itself to simple summary. But it emphasises, inter alia, these features. 1. The Quartets are rightly read as a unified cycle. The first three, though relatively complete in themselves, are built upon and retrospectively modified by their successors in a complex pattern; and the recurring and developing themes are not fully resolved until the end of little Gidding. On the other hand, the five individual parts that go to make up each Quartet are not self-contained, and cannot properly be read in isolation. (Such readings fail especially to make sense of the Part IV lyrics. ) 2. The poetry is meditative lyric, or lyric meditation, rather than personal confession or philosophic statement. The poet's voice often speaks generically. The whole cycle - like each Quartet itself - begins with individual perception or experience and, through meditation upon it, broadens into universal statement at the end. The point of departure is generally some time - transcending experience; the concluding meditation generally relates the perceptions of the timeless to perceptions about the nature of art and the nature of love, both human and divine. 3. Despite occasional lapses, usually in Part II or Part III, assertions of large scale failure (in The Dry Salvages especially) are not justified by close scrutiny of the poetic texture. Analysis of structural, tonal, metrical and syntactic features vindicates even the alleged prosaically flat passages. 4. The poetry works largely with traditional imagery, plain diction, orthodox syntax and pervasive four-stress rhythm. There are several departures from all these, yet a rjght reading will see them as deliberate variations, for specific purposes, on the given norms. The general aim of the thesis is to demonstrate that the poems are less difficult in thought and peculiar in method than has often been supposed.
'The artist woke': Perceval Gibbon: from reporter to novelist.
(1989) Stewart, Graham Douglas James.
My contention is that the development in Gibbon's narrative technique shows evidence of a liberalising ideological change, which enabled the author to transcend the racist attitudes apparent in his early works and attain a more tolerant point of view in Margaret Harding, his last novel. I draw a distinction between Gibbon's authorial 'point of view' and 'narrative viewpoint' to differentiate between his own occasionally-expressed racism, and his ironic portrayal of racist characters. Gibbon ultimately overcomes his ambivalence by refining his style; a process that not only mirrors the resolution of his personal response to the question of race but also marks his progress from news reporter to accomplished artist In my Introduction I argue that Gibbon, whose preoccupation was with social issues rather than the individual moral development of his characters, has tended to be ignored by critics who favoured the psychological (or realist) novel. In Chapter 1, the short stories of The Vrouw Grobelaar's Leading Cases are shown to reveal two key elements of Gibbon's writing: a readiness for personifying typically South African attitudes, and a concern with relationships between people of different races. Gibbon's narrator does not, however, distance himself sufficiently from Vrouw Grobelaar's bigoted views. Souls in Bondage addresses a theme that Gibbon recognises as the matrix out of which South Africa's future society must develop: the relationship between white colonials and the local black population. The central character, Thwaites, reflects in ·his shifting sympathies Gibbon's own growing apprehension of racism, and is evidence of Gibbon's firmer control over the narrative and moral centre of his material. While Salvator ignores the racial predicament in South African society, it reveals some development of Gibbon's command of narrative viewpoint. The theatrical 'placement' of juxtaposed characters anticipates the structure of Margaret Harding. In Margaret Harding Gibbon's criticism of racist society shows a maturity in which the uncertain identifications of Vrouw Grobelaar and Souls in Bondage have been resolved. The richer, more poetic depth of his writing style may also be attributable to a collaboration with Joseph Conrad. Gibbon's work deserves more than a marginal place in South African literature. His Vrouw Grobelaar short stories and his novels offer a unique insight into society at the turn of the century, and reflect the author's own experience of shedding the Social Darwinist ideology of race: from 'savage' to 'artist'.
Nathaniel Nakasa, the journalist as autobiographer : a crisis of identity.
(1990) Singh, Habimun Bharath.
Nathaniel Ndazana Nakasa [1937 - 1965] was a South African journalist who reported for llanga Lase [Natal] in 1956 and 1957, for Drum magazine from 1958 to 1964 and wrote a column for the Saturday edition of the Rand Daily Mail in I9B4. He also founded the literary journal The Classic in 1963. This essay is the first extended treatment of Nakasa's writing, and views his journalism as part of his own 'autobiography1. As such, his writing reflects his crisis of identity, which resulted from his endeavour to sustain his vision of a broad South African humanism in the face of the apartheid policies of the Government in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Nakasa's death by suicide in New York in 1965 signalled the tragic end of his search for equality and justice. Nakasa had been labelled 'the black face behind the white mask' and is criticised, particularly by adherents of Black Consciousness, for his evident faith in the tenets of liberalism. This essay attempts to locate Nakasa in the context of opposition by those of humanist inclinations to apartheid in the fifties and sixties and to view sympathetically his commitment to justice and compassion : values which remain relevant and valid in our search for a better society in South Africa. The investigation proceeds by an analysis of his journalism as both the record of the times and, more subjectively, the projection and expression of his own crisis-ridden personality. An introduction is followed by two sections on his writing, the first dealing with his articles on Drum, the second with his sketches on the Rand Daily Mail. A brief conclusion argues for the continuing interest of Nakasa's writing.
Mary Benson : the problem of defining the "self".
(1991) Stewart, Dianne Lynn.; Chapman, Michael James Faulds.
This study investigates the problem of defining Mary Benson as a person and a writer. Her writing spans a range of generic classifications - biography, history, plays, a novel and an autobiography. Yet, all are centred on her preoccupation with the struggle for freedom in South Africa. All reveal, moreover, a great deal about Benson's own values and commitment, prompting us to question the validity, in her case, of such strict generic categories as useful defining properties in her literary career. Starting with her most recent publication, the autobiography A Far Cry. I shall look at the way she presents herself in a traditionally introspective genre. It soon becomes apparent that Benson views herself within a perspective of South African social reality, and that her sense of self is inextricably linked to her political involvement. Her personal needs and desires, to a large extent, remain unobtrusive as she foregrounds her public interactions and her concern with humanitarian and racial issues. A study of Benson, therefore, needs to address a selection of her work in an attempt to fully appreciate her sense of her own identity. In consequence, I go on to discuss her biography Nelson Mandela and her novel At the Still Point. .Both works confirm the portrait in A Far Cry of Benson as a responsible South African who has selflessly and consistently devoted herself to her role as a witness of racial oppression in South Africa. In her biography, Nelson Mandela, for example, the ANC leader emerges as an exemplary figure in the public world while his values and ideals are allowed to parallel Benson's own 'autobiographical' ideals. In At the Still Point, Anne Dawson, Benson's fictional protagonist, I shall argue, gives her author the opportunity to express her own feelings about private life in relation to sociopolitical action. These 'personal ' feelings seem to be avoided in the more direct opportunities of the autobiographical form. In exploring Benson's sense of self, therefore, this study suggests that for Benson 'commitment' overrides her sense of herself as a literary figure, and that this has consequences for the weight we give to content and form in the reading of her work. My conclusion is that we are looking not so much at the challenges of genre as at a large autobiographical project, in which the 'self is defined substantially in its meetings with other people in political circumstances
Theatre for young audiences and the Commedia dell'arte : the living tradition of the Commedia dell'arte in theatre for young audiences, with specific reference to selected original texts and performances.
(1992) Scholtz, Pieter Jacobus Hendrik.
The thesis affirms the relevance of "Theatre for Young Audiences" as a valid and distinctive genre; a performance genre that should entertain, educate and provide meaning in terms of its creative interaction with personal, social, artistic and cultural issues. The practice of playwrighting is removed from the assumption that it relies exclusively on inspiration, intuition and spontaneity; it is placed within a creative, experiential and discursive mode in which dramatic, theatrical, performance and structural issues can be researched, analysed and evaluated culminating in the crafting, making and presentation of innovative and challenging theatre. The research component of the thesis attempts to identify the social and moral responsibility of the playwright writing for young audiences. It is asserted that knowledge about the maturation of young people is crucial in the creative processes of writing plays and making theatre. The second chapter in Part One of the thesis, asserts that knowledge about the physical, emotional and intellectual maturation of the intended audience should clearly impact on the delineation of plot, action, character, language, audience participation, ethics and morality. The thesis clearly identifies the importance of this knowledge for the Arts Educator. However, "Theatre for Young Audiences" does not function solely in the realm of education. The thesis distinguishes this genre from those of "Theatre-in-Education" and "Drama-in-Education". The thesis firmly supports this distinction and affirms the status of "Theatre for Young Audiences" as a performing art. This argument is given further credence by the creative interaction of original scripts with the "living tradition" of the Commedia dell' Arte. The Commedia dell' Arte is examined from an historical perspective; pertinent features are addressed, selected, utilised and transformed into a dynamic theatrical experience for young audiences in contemporary South Africa. The Commedia dell' Arte serves as a theatrical model and becomes a creative device for further and renewed innovation. The inclusion of three original plays in Appendices 1, 2 and 3, plus numerous references to selected, original texts and performances provide an illustration of the concept that playwrighting for young people can effectively and imaginatively transpose theoretical inquiry into imaginative and challenging theatre experience. The thesis attempts to utilise a clear conceptual basis for the development of argument - the educational and psychological perspectives provide a foundation for ideas and critical writing. The theatre heritage becomes a catalyst for innovative and pertinent theatre that affirms the status, purpose and nature of "Theatre for Young Audiences" in contemporary South Africa.
The silence at the interface : culture and narrative in selected twentieth-century Southern African novels in English.
(1992) Hooper, Myrtle Jane.; Jacobs, Johan Uys.
The primary intention of this study is to establish the theoretical significance of silence within the sphere of the twentieth-century Southern African novel in English. Clearly a feature of recent writing, silence is less overtly thematised in earlier work. Since relatively little critical and theoretical attention has been paid to silence as a positive phenomenon, however, modes of reading it are sought within the broader sphere of the social sciences, and specifically its tradition of social constructionism. Care is taken to address the pressures of the local context, identified in terms of the postcolonial paradigm as relating to language and to culture. A deliberate theoretical innovation is the renunciation of the trope of penetration in favour of the notion of an interface between intact language-culture systems, given an understanding of culture as existing between subjects in relations of power. Fictional narrative which addresses cross-culturality is thus read as a process of cultural translation, and the volitional deployment of silence as an act of resistance to its power. The significance of language is registered in the use of speech-act theory, in the insistence on meaning as generated in spatially and temporally situated conversation, and in the exploration of the influence of pronominal relations on identity. Emerging from my investigation is a recognition of the measure offered by silence of the autonomy of character as subject, and a corresponding recognition of the constitutive capacity of the reader to site the power of narration amongst the polyphonic voices within the culture of the text. The postcolonial paradigm indicates the need for a regional rather than a national perspective; thus the interfaces considered in the case studies include, in Plaatje's Mhudi, orality and literacy, tribal membership and non-sectarianism, Tswana and English; in Paton's Too Late the Phalarope the private domain and apartheid as public hegemonic discourse, narration as possession, and the tragic as structuring textual relations; and in Head's Maru the constitution of a postcolonial identity that resists and transcends the discursive hostility of racism, and the dislocation, displacement and alienation of exilic refuge from apartheid.
The playwright-performer as scourge and benefactor : an examination of political satire and lampoon in South African theatre, with particular reference to Pieter-Dirk Uys.
(1993) McMurtry, Mervyn Eric.; Scholtz, Pieter Jacobus Hendrik.
During the 1970s the plays of Pieter-Dirk Uys became causes celebres. In the 1980s he was, commercially and artistically, arguably the most successful South African satirist. By 1990 he had gained recognition in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Germany. Yet relatively little research has been undertaken or published which evaluates his contribution to South African theatre as a playwright and performer of political satire. This dissertation aims to document and assess the satiric work of Uys and that of his precursors and contemporaries. The first chapter identifies certain characteristic features and purposes of satire as a creative method which cannot be defined in purely literary terms. The views of local practitioners and references to its manifestation in various non-literary and indigenous forms are included to support the descriptive approach to satire in performance adopted in later chapters. Of necessity to a study of Uys's lampoons, Chapter 2 discusses the origins of lampoon and the theatrical presentation of actual persons by Aristophanes (the first extant Western playwright to do so). Both the textual and visual ridicule of Socrates, Euripides, Cleon and Lamachus are considered, to argue that Aristophanes employed the nominal character as a factional type to exemplify a concept for humorous rather than meliorative purposes. Part One of Chapter 3 is a necessarily selective survey of the diversity, style and censorship of satire in South Africa in various theatrical, literary and journalistic forms. Part Two describes the use of satire by Adam Leslie, Jeremy Taylor, Robert Kirby and, more recently, Paul Slabolepszy, Mark Banks, Ian Fraser, Eric Miyeni and the 'alternative' Afrikaners in plays and in revue, cabaret and stand-up comedy. Chapter 4 examines the principal themes of Uys's plays to date, the 1981-1992 revues as entertainment and as a reflection of certain social and political issues, the similarities between his theatrical praxis and that of Aristophanes, and his satiric strategies in performance: his preparatory and visual signifiers, his concern with proxemics, and his mastery of kinesics, paralanguage and chronemics in depicting a spectrum of fictional and non-fictional personae, including Evita Bezuidenhout, P.W. Botha and the Uys-persona.

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