Bøger af Robert Mshengu Kavanagh

SELECTED PLAYS is a collection of plays with a difference. It features the work of South African theatre practitioner, arts educationist, cultural activist and academic, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, in South Africa, England, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. However, as Kavanagh himself makes clear, he did not single-handedly write a single one of them. They are all plays in which he worked with actors or other writers in a playmaking process which he led and which produced a performance which he directed and sometimes acted in. The first in the series featured the work of Workshop '71 in South Africa in the 1970s. This, the second volume, features the political theatre of the socialist Frontline theatre group, Zambuko/ Izibuko in the 1980s and early 90s in Zimbabwe, a the period that followed the coming of independence to Zimbabwe and the intensification in South Africa and the Southern African region of the struggle against apartheid. It was a highly ideological and militant phase in the region's history. The plays of Zambuko/Izibuko reflect this. It's name, in Shona and Ndebele, means 'river-crossing', the crossing from the colonial, racist, exploitative society of the past into a new just and free society. Zambuko/Izibuko was based at the University of Zimbabwe and its membership included cultural activists from various walks of life, all of whom were deeply political and committed to the struggle for social justice. This volume includes four full-length plays, 'Katshaa! - the Sound of the AK' [an anti-apartheid agit-prop piece], 'Samora Continua' [on the history of Mozambique and its struggle for a new society], 'Mandela, the Spirit of No Surrender' [how Mandela's inspiration, even in jail, helped the people of South Africa to keep fighting] and 'Simuka Zimbabwe- Zimbabwe Arise' [an innovative and trenchant satire on the International Monetary Fund's Structural Adjustment programme in Zimbabwe], and 'Chris Hani: Revolutionary Fighter', a short play staged shortly after the assassination of the ANC and Umkhonto weSizwe freedom-fighter, Chris Hani.The plays are all imaginative and lively, ranging from straight agit-prop to realism and feature lots of songs, dances and physical theatre. Each playscript is prefaced with a background to the play and an account of how it was made. An interesting feature of Zambuko/Izibuko's work was its use of short political pieces created for specific occasions, called 'ngonjera', a concept adapted from Tanzania.

While the Irish occupied a rich and fertile land, they were not Anglo-Saxons or Normans but Gaelic Celts; they were not Protestants, but Catholics. This was the cocktail of factors which led to the conquest, colonisation, and destruction of Celtic Ireland. What many do not know is that a great deal of Ireland's history mirrors the colonial history of Africa. It is almost as if the Irish experience was a dress rehearsal for what the West inflicted on Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, except the agony of Ireland lasted a millennium. Many believe that brutal conquest and colonialism along with racial discrimination and apartheid only happened to Africans and that it happened because they are Africans, because they are black. When they are confronted by the trauma of the Irish - who were not Africans and not black - it makes it easier to understand Africa's trauma in the wider context of world history. 'The Trauma We Share' examines the parallels between Irish and African history to allow both to view their histories from an intriguing new perspective. The history of Ireland is bitter but at the same time heroic. Full of colourful and dramatic events, it makes gripping reading. A book both Irish and African readers will enjoy.

This, the fifth in the series of selected plays, features three plays - Yedebubu Duka: Footsteps in the South [South Africa], Mavambo: First Steps [Zimbabwe] and The Tree of Ghosts [Namibia] - which span thirty five years and are situated in three countries. Apart from coming from different Southern African countries, they have one thing in common, their liberations struggles - the ANC and PAC's struggle against apartheid; ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU's struggle for Zimbabwean independence; and SWAPO's struggle for Namibian independence. All three plays were adapted from existing texts - From Shantytown to Forest by Norman Duka, Son of the Soil by Wilson Katiyo and Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen.

"Zimbabwe: Challenging the Stereotypes" brings the story of Zimbabwe up-to-date (2014) in a dramatic, readable, firsthand description of thirty four years of Zimbabwe's history by a South African academic, writer and arts educationist who went through it all - from Independence to the present. While it confirms some of the West's criticisms, it offers a unique alternative viewpoint and questions a number of long-held and seldom challenged beliefs, including the almost universal cliché that at Independence Zimbabwe had everything going for it and threw it all away through bad government. It offers a fresh assessment of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's military involvement in the Congo, the Gukurahundi massacres in Matebeleland, sanctions, human rights, the rule of law, the media and culture in Zimbabwe and builds on recent research which demonstrates that the reality of the Land Reform and other aspects of the country's recent history belie the unquestioned and widely-propagated myths.Extracts from pre-publication previews: "Anyone interested in Zimbabwe's recent history should read this book...thoroughly recommended..." - Prof. Ian Scoones, University of Sussex, UK, co-author of Zimbabwe's Land Reform: Myths and Realities "Refreshingly daring, original, inventive and captivating, ...highly controversial and likely to stir heated debate" - Prof. Micere Githae Mugo, Syracuse University, US, Kenyan poet, playwright and essayist, author of Writing and Speaking from the Heart of My Mind "Told with brutal honesty. A book all South Africans - and indeed all who wish to learn - must read" - Maishe Maponya, South African playwright and poet, author of The Hungry Earth and Gangsters.

The Selected Plays series features theatre work in which Robert Mshengu Kavanagh played a leading role, as playmaker, director and/or actor. The first in the series featured the work of Workshop '71 in South Africa in the 1970s. The second volume, featured the political theatre of the socialist Frontline theatre group, Zambuko/Izibuko, in the 1980s and early '90s in Zimbabwe, the period that followed the coming of independence to Zimbabwe and the intensification in South Africa and the Southern African region of the struggle against apartheid. This volume is a collection of plays Kavanagh was involved in between 2002 and 2010 while working with the New Horizon Youth Theatre Company, a project in the youth programme of the Zimbabwean arts education for development and employment organisation, the CHIPAWO Trust, It includes four plays and an appendix in which an unfinished play is offered to directors and youth theatre companies for development into a finished production.The four plays are as follows: The Little Man of Murehwa, a hilarious but profound social satire set in the Zimbabwean countryside, based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen; a dramatization of Charles Mungoshi's classic novel; Waiting for the Rain; a creative adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, called A Journey to Yourself; an interrogation of Norah's actions in Ibsen's play, A Doll's House, in the context of Zimbabwean culture and social norms, called The Most Wonderful Thing of All; and, as an Appendix, the unfinished script of Secrets, an adaptation of Lutanga Shaba's book on her life and struggles as a woman who is HIV-positive. SELECTED PLAYS is a collection of plays with a difference. It features the work of South African theatre practitioner, arts educationist, cultural activist and academic, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, in South Africa, England, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. However, as Kavanagh himself makes clear, he did not single-handedly write a single one of them. They are all plays in which he worked with actors or other writers in a playmaking process which he led and which produced a performance which he directed.

Making Theatre is an A - Z guide to making and performing theatre. There are hundreds of books on the various aspects of theatre but almost all of them are about theatre as it is practised in Europe and North America. Making Theatre is a guide to theatre that many theatre practitioners in the rest of the world might find refreshing and extremely helpful. With knowledge, experience and insights derived from over thirty years of practical theatre and teaching in many different countries in Africa and exposure to theatre from all over the world, Kavanagh takes the reader from the very earliest stages of involvement - forming or joining a group and beginning to act and make theatre through the directing and rehearsal process, the choices available in theatre techniques, kinds of theatre, staging, lighting and set right up to performance and post-performance, getting an audience, ethics and festivals. He advocates a democratic, collective and ethical approach based on respect and the centrality of the actor and he illustrates his points with examples from many different successful productions he and others have made and performed.

A collection of poems on a wide range of topics reflecting the thoughts of the Southern African author and academic, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, such as the beauty of women, the end of the world, armed bandits in Mozambique, socialism and how nice it is to be loved. Then there is a small selection of deadly doggerels, celebrating the early English master of doggerel verse, John Skelton, on such pressing issues as finding the jam jar empty, not being able to find unsliced bread or the way a fly can be such a persistent pest and an expert in escaping retribution.

Selected Plays is a collection of plays with a difference. It features the work of South African theatre practitioner, arts educationist, cultural activist and academic, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, in South Africa, England, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. However, as Kavanagh himself makes clear, he did not single-handedly write a single one of them. They are all plays in which he worked with actors or other writers in a playmaking process which he led and which produced a performance which he directed. Even the directing method was socialised and democratic, with actors and sometimes visitors free to make suggestions - a form of directing which the Russian director, Yevgeny Vakhtangov, also favoured.All the plays featured in this the first volume of the Selected Plays were produced by the well-known and influential theatre organisation, Experimental Theatre Workshop '71. Founded in 1971 in Johannesburg, Workshop '71 pioneered unsegregated theatre and played an important role in the development of the theatre of the dispossessed majority. All three plays, Crossroads, uHlanga - the Reed and Survival, received enthusiastic reviews when they opened at unsegregated venues in the apartheid South Africa of the 1970s. All three plays were devised through a process of research, acting exercises, improvisations and discussion involving the director, Kavanagh, and the actors. Crossroads was a non-racial production and the cast included members of all the different racial groups. It was one of the first 'workshop theatre' productions in South Africa and possibly the first to make use of almost all the actual languages as they are spoken by South Africans, including tsotsitaal, a language created by black South Africans as a lingua franca and spoken by many urban-based intellectuals, artists and young people. The play was based on the medieval play, Everyman, and the life of a notorious Johannesburg gangster, Lefty Mthembu. It interrogates conventional morality in the context of apartheid oppression. uHlanga is a one-actor play which goes deeply into African history, culture and spiritual experience. The actor, James Mthoba, dazzled with his versatility and skills. As one reviewer wrote, he brought virtually the whole African continent onto the stage. Survival is a four man ensemble theatre piece, witty, fast-moving and also hard-hitting. Based in jail, the four actors explore through music, dance and dialogue the metaphor of prison - the prison inside and the prison outside - revealing in the process how in apartheid South Africa, for the oppressed, society was in itself a prison.

Adam Kok is a fictional character. A Griqua, descended from an all too intimate follower of the legendary Griqua chief, Adam Kok. His ancient forebear handed down the line his own taste for other men's wives, including the chief's, and the chief's modern namesake followed dedicatedly in his forebear's footsteps. Having participated in the armed struggle against the apartheid regime, Adam Kok came to live in Zimbabwe, where he married the beautiful and upright, Rudo. Although he died a few years back, Adam used his job as a popular human interest journalist for a Harare newspaper to good effect. Adam was a great lover of women, a latter day Don Juan or Giacomo Casanova, an Africanist, a staunch Griqua patriot, an Epicurean when it came to Scots whisky and a frequenter of drinking holes, a man whose iconoclastic effusions were a cocktail of the truth people do not like to hear, and pure evil. A photographic negative, whose whiteness forced one to think of black and whose blackness made one think of white - an immoral scoundrel. Though almost all the stories relate the unabashed Utilitarianism of Adam's philosophy of life, many of them tackle issues of current importance in Zimbabwe, in Africa and the World. The narrator sets up a dialogue between his friend, Adam, and the reader in order to explore these issues. The result is a dialectic between Adam's own scandalous thoughts and deeds, the idea's of his wife, Rudo, who is a devout Catholic, the reader and the narrator himself, who is a socialist. In the process a fascinating cross-section of Zimbabwean as well as global social life and textures emerges. The original idea was inspired by Stuart Cloete's tales of Jean Macaque. His witty, iconoclastic and amoral depiction of scandalous situations in the capital of love, Paris, seemed to ring some serious bells when it came to the goings-on in Harare, the Sunshine City, and also a capital - if not of love - let us say sexual adventure.

Jan Symons, Head Girl at an exclusive private school in South Africa, meets three young men, Bruce Ferguson, James Donahue and Morris Galliers, at the School Dance, who become important in her life. Ferguson is killed while still at school but continues to impact on her life.As a loved but rather scandalous teacher she becomes best friends with Francis, another teacher, who is shocked by the stories Jan tells her about what goes on at exclusive boarding schools, including the death of Ferguson. She persuades her to write it up as a thesis. Jan's thesis, which she converts into a book, explores the nature of elite white private education and the institution of boarding schools in apartheid South Africa and the potential impact the system might have in the 'New' South Africa and spells out the effects on boys and girls, men and women who go to such schools - as well as to their parents, mothers in particular. In the process the events taking place in the country, beginning with the 1976 Soweto Uprising, and her encounters with the Black Consciousness Movement and the mass democratic movement induce in her a political awakening.Jan's life, her loves and friendships and in particular her struggle to write and eventually publish her book in the teeth of opposition from the academic and social establishment become for her a journey through the life, feelings and experiences of little boys in preparatory boarding schools, bigger boys in prestigious colleges, young men in university residences and then the effects these experiences have on them and their families in their adult lives.

Nigeria is an African giant. However it is a giant whose limbs and organs have been taken from many old bodies and stitched together. From its inception, its first major task was to get all these body parts melded and welded as one. As with many modern African nations that were once colonies, at Independence Nigeria faced enormous challenges. Colonialism had never had as one of its goals the forging of viable modern independent nations. Just as the European nations scrambled for their bits and pieces of Africa so when it suited them they scrambled to cast them precariously into the bogs and whirlpools of political independence. No wonder that even the first Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and other leaders of the different regions in the country denied the very existence of the nation they had been elected to govern. Nigeria and being Nigerian, they commented, was an artificial concept. None of them had ever been trained or given the opportunity to govern. The economy they inherited and the infrastructure that served that economy was never intended to be anything else but a conduit of colonial wealth to the mother country. Then those who now took over and those who found themselves in the armed forces, soon realized that they had the muscle to do whatever they liked. All their lives they had been denied access to the fruits of their country's wealth while at the same time they watched the small white population living the life they now itched to live. The inevitable result was the coups and corruption that has characterized much of Nigeria's history.Gamawa's book sets the scene and then traces how the Nigerian people suffered the legacy of their colonial past. But he also shows how, confronted by its immense challenges Nigetrians tried, often fruitlessly, to put things right. Within a few years a tragic series of events, culminating in the Biafran War, threatened to tear the country apart. They saw that the regional stricture inherited from the British amalgamation of its four colonies was a recipe for disaster - so they changed it. They saw that the abuse of military power was equally dangerous and the corruption of both military and civil government was eating the country up. They worked on it, till the military stopped making coups whenever they liked. They fumed and fulminated at the vote-rigging and vote-buying at elections that frustrated the will of the people. Again they worked on it - and elections got better. This is the strength of "Our Destiny Is in Our Hands" - a quote from the Foreword by Mohammudu Buhari, now President of Nigeria. While Gamawa's book does not flinch from narrating the greed and the shocking abuse that characterises his country's history so far, he also shows how Nigerians have demonstrated that they can get it right and have registered significant advances. There is still a great deal to be done before the African giant flexes its muscles and walks onto the international arena to fulfill its full potential. Nigerians can do it. Their destiny is in their hands.

This is the story of a Black South African who was brought up, lived and died in Soweto or thereabouts. It is very unlikely that history will remember him - or the many others like him. No important people attended Vusi's funeral. At one point in his life, he was described by the Chairman of a great gold-mining corporation in South Africa as a 'nobody'. According to the measure of the world, that is what he was.But the dark days of apartheid and the lighter but deceptive days of the new democratic South Africa are well-known for stunting lives and wasting human capital. A white South African who was popularly known by the praise name, Damase, forged in the crucible of apartheid race relations a lifetime friendship with Vusi. According to him, there was a great deal more to the nobody than the world would have thought. The course of Damase and Vusi's friendship begins with a chance meeting in the library of a local university. At first it was the Zulu language that brought Vusi and Damase together - - but their friendship rapidly grew to be so much more. The book describes in lively fashion how that friendship developed and at the same time reveals a lived history - a history of the time and of the place. It is the 1970s in Johannesburg, Soweto and the Reef in general, a time when change was afoot, when the currents of social, economic and cultural developments were converging on the day the end began - June 16th, 1976.The rhythm of their friendship unconsciously follows the beat of the historic drum. In the beginning there are the bwat's, risky but enchanted parties. Vusi has a settled job in the library. The two go to Swaziland for the weekend, pursuing escape and pleasure but finding food for thought. The growing embourgoisement in Soweto, the rise of Black Consciousness, the increased militancy of the workers and the intensification of the battle for economic survival are reflected in Vusi's new house, the loss of his job and his efforts to stand on his own without having to work for the white baas.The growing polarisation between black and white, which provided the stimulus for the great uprising and which set in motion the unstoppable march to freedom, impacts cruelly on Vusi and Damase's friendship as friends and even family begin to decry it - until finally Damase decides to leave his homeland. Much later he returns for periodic visits and Vusi and he renew their friendship. It is during this period that Damase comes to know what Vusi has been through and what he has achieved in the tumultuous years before the negotiations that led to the death of legislative apartheid. He also comes to know how he has been cheated and robbed of the fruits of his achievements in the new South Africa and sadly watches as Vusi's entrails, like the Spartan boy's, are devoured by the wolf of rage and impotence. Despite the heavy pall of apartheid and its tragic waste and degradation, people managed to make for themselves such sweetness - as the story of Vusi demonstrates - and in the process innovate and conjure exhilarating ideas, wit and behaviour. All this is exemplified in the power, versatility and inventiveness of the languages they spoke. So the story of Vusi and Damase's friendship is not only a tale of transcultural and racial relations and the history of the time. It is also a linguistic voyage of discovery.

Federico Garcia Lorca, one of Span's greatest poets and playwrights, was brutally murdered by Franco's Falangists during the Spanish Civil War. 1936-39. "A Chalice of Knives: The Last Days of Lorca" is written by South African poet and playwright, Walter Saunders. He wrote the play while attending on a daily basis the apartheid government's fraudulent investigation into the murder by the South African police of Stephen Bantu Biko, inspirational leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa."A Chalice of Knives" is a play which, with a growing sense of inevitability, captures both the terror of the time and Lorca's own acceptance of his impending fate. The structure is spare and innovative and the language captures the tone and poetic nuance of the poet it portrays. Designed to be performed with a guitar backing, "A Chalice of Knives" is a refreshing and tempting prospect for directors who are looking for an original dramatic experience. In order to ensure that readers and directors are in a position to appreciate fully the play's evocations, the editor, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, himself a director, actor and author of numerous books on theatre, has provided a comprehensive introduction on both the historical period in which the play takes place as well as Lorca's own significance nationally and universally. He writes: 'Fascism is no more in the land of Lorca as formal apartheid is no more in the land of Biko. Lorca, like Biko joins the long list of intellectuals and writers whose lives were unjustly and cruelly crushed by totalitarian regimes which go in mortal fear of the values they stand for and the pens with which they immortalise those values. In this way Lorca is a man for all seasons. So far there is no end to such regimes. However, thank goodness there is also no end to those, who, like Lorca and Biko, stand up to be counted and in the process renew our faith that ultimately humanity will answer to their call.'

'The Complete S'ketsh'' is a facsimile edition of the seven issues of a theatre and entertainment magazine that was published in South Africa between 1972 and 1979 and which reflected the ideas, debates and practice of those excluded from segregated white culture and which flourished against all the odds. The 1970s were an extraordinary decade in the history of South African theatre and S'ketsh' Magazine has proved to be an extraordinary record of it. The pages of S'ketsh' are a window into the arts and, in particular, the theatre of a unique period in the history of South Africans' heroic struggle to survive with dignity, achieve wonders, express their hopes and fears and lay claim to their shared humanity in the dark days of apartheid. At last theatre and visual and performing arts practitioners, scholars, students and anyone interested in what was going on in the unsegregated arts activity of South Africa in the 1970s can access the hugely informative pages of S'ketsh' Magazine, which described itself as 'South Africa's magazine for popular theatre and entertainment' [first five issues] and 'South Africa's magazine for theatre and entertainment' [last two issues]. A number of researchers and authors have published on or included a study of the theatre and performing arts of the 1970's but hitherto the treasure trove of information contained in the pages of S'ketsh' has been literally a closed book to them. This should now change as at last that book can be opened in the form of this facsimile edition. In addition to the texts and graphics of the seven issues, 'The Complete S'ketsh' includes a Reading List at the end of the book for those who wish to find out more about the theatre personalities, developments and works referred to in S'ketsh' Magazine. There is also a Consolidated Contents and a list of contributors.

A pioneering study of South African theatre under Apartheid, exploring the ways in which the stage became an arena for the battle against oppression.