Intrusive hegemonies and localised identities in early South African drama and theatre: 1880 to 1930

Abstract

Studies in early African drama which focus on the onset of colonialism have often assumed a binary approach, wherein Eurocentric discourses were pitted in mortal combat against backward African cultural forms within the grand narrative of Europe’s civilising mission. This article attempts a radical alteration to this focus. It adopts hegemony and resistance theory in order to foreground possibilities for an alternative reading of early South African drama. It departs from the traditional reading of African theatre that views contact between European and African dramatic forms as no more than an attempt at elimination through co-option, arguing for a more nuanced reading wherein attempts at co-option and elimination of African dramatic forms were in fact replete with numerous instances of symbolic resistance. The principal argument is that African forms continued to assert themselves in subtle ways even in those instances where Eurocentric discourses had attempted or apparently succeeded in their elimination, co-option and domestication. We focus on South African drama between 1880 and 1930. We view this era as one that marks the beginning of a contested post-colonial contact zone in early South African drama, in which intrusive Eurocentric cultural hegemonies were resisted by local identities through the efforts of apparently co-opted African drama groups and playwrights of the time.