Noua dramă în Africa de sud
The New Drama in South Africa

Summary/Abstract: This work was only made possible through the constructive support that I received from several South African theater professionals – prominent artists that I was privileged to collaborate with for more than 8 years. Furthermore, the essence of this article is somewhat gauged by the direct experiences that I had during those years of political and social transition that followed the abolition of the apartheid in the first half of 1994. I witnessed those events first-hand as I took my art onto South African stages and universities. During the last two decades the profound social and cultural changes that took place not only in South Africa but also throughout the world have questioned the validity of many historical concepts and theories which resulted in the need for revising them in order to gain universal acceptance. In the South African case this led to a drive towards rediscovering of lost historical documents as well as the discovery of new ones – which essentially is a redefinition of historical principles. The fundamental goal was to discover valuable documents within the artistic heritage from, before and during the colonial era, heritage that was largely ignored, rejected or undervalued by the historians and the scholars of those times, as well as accepting their historical value and authenticity. Current theater critique tendencies, which developed mostly in the last decade or so, favor a revisionary vision, as a direct result of the recent social, political and economic progressions, while abolishing the eurocentrist directions of the distant past.

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