SOURCE: Kavanagh, Robert Mshengu. “The Development of Theatre in South Africa up to 1976.” In Theatre and Cultural Struggle in South Africa, pp. 43-58. London: Zed Books, 1985.

In the following essay, Kavanagh provides a history of the theater in South Africa from the inception of apartheid through the uprisings in Soweto and other black urban areas in 1976. He traces multiracial collaborations before and during the entertainment segregation laws of the 1960s, the influence of Bantu and Zulu oral traditions as well as European models, and the emergence of the Black Consciousness movement in the early 1970s. The early careers and influence of Ezekiel Mphahlele and Athol Fugard are discussed at length.

Not very long ago Africans and non-Africans alike believed that African history began with the arrival of Europeans on the coast of West Africa. Similarly many thought—and still do—that African theatre began with the first European-inspired...