A Museum of Bootled Sentiments : The
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A Museum of Bottled Sentiments: the ‘beautiful pain syndrome’ in twenty-first century Black South African theatre making. Alude Mahali Town Thesis submitted for the degree ofCape of Doctor of Philosophy In the Department of Drama, Faculty of Humanities, Univeristy UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN July 2013 The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University ABSTRACT A Museum of Bottled Sentiments: the ‘beautiful pain syndrome’ in twenty-first century Black South African theatre making. This study is about contemporary black theatre makers and theatre making in the ‘now moment’; this moment of recoVery and gradual transition after the fall of apartheid in South Africa. The ‘now moment’, for these theatre makers, is characterized by a deliberate journey inward, in a struggle towards self-determination. The ‘now moment’ is the impulse prompting the ‘beautiful pain syndrome’, and through performances of uncomfortable attachments and rites of passage, generates and dwells in the syndrome. Uncomfortable attachments are unsettlement and anxiety wrought by the difficulty of the ‘now moment’. These manifest in the work of Black South African-based contemporary theatre makers, Mandla Mbothwe, Awelani Moyo, Mamela Nyamza and Asanda Phewa, within the duality of the ‘beautiful pain syndrome’. The ‘beautiful pain syndrome’ is a cultural dis-ease reVealed by the indiVidual theatre makers through the aesthetic interpretation, or beautiful consideration of inherently painful material – a condition or predicament that best contains and yet attempts to unpack this shifting impulse of the ‘now’ moment. The works around which this study reVolVes, namely Mbothwe’s Ingcwaba lendoda lise cankwe ndlela (the grave of the man is next to the road) (2009), Moyo’s Huroyi Hwang – De/Re Composition (2007), Nyamza’s Hatched (2009) and Phewa’s A Face Like Mine (2008) are rites of passage works, representing a passage or transition from one phase of life to another, which occurs on multiple leVels. Through guiding thinking tools, which include intuition, my own positioning, obserVation and comparatiVe and cultural performance analysis, the four selected works are described, probed and, interrogated; with their purposes and poetics inVestigated and articulated in different ways. The study does not complete the assignment of unpacking the four works but continues to wonder and worry at them, while inVestigating a particular aesthetic of dis-ease through the artistic assemblage of symbolic categories. These rites of passage works reflect or echo the transitions in the country’s shifting identity, along with the identities of the indiViduals who inhabit it. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the support, generosity and guidance of a number of indiViduals and institutions to whom I am eternally grateful. It is through the priVilege of receiVing seVeral endowments that I have managed to complete my study. Many thanks to the UniVersity of Cape Town for their sustained financial support during my graduate studies, the Harry Crossley Fellowship, Oppenheimer Memorial Trust and Rosalind Van der Gucht Bursary. I would like to acknowledge the UCT Drama department faculty, my peers and student body for creatiVe and intellectual stimulation and resources. Dr. Gay Morris, my superVisor; your patience, direction, adVice, and intellectual Vigour was of great Value. You have gone aboVe and beyond for me and I could not have asked for a better superVisor. Prof. Ari Sitas, my co- supervisor, thank you for your willingness to take me on. Your additional perspectiVe is greatly appreciated. Dr. Mbala Nkanga, who serVed as an adVisor in my time as a Visiting scholar at the UniVersity of Michigan. Thank you for taking me on when you did not haVe to. Thank you for being a keen listener and for your worthwhile intellectual contributions. Thank you to the Telluride Association in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Reese Miller scholarship 2010-2011. Moeneeb Dalwai, IT technician on Hiddingh campus. Thank you for always being on hand to help with my frequent technical issues. I also acknowledge, with gratitude, the Hiddingh library staff who assisted me with getting a hold of reading material. To Awelani Moyo, Mandla Mbothwe, Mamela Nyamza and Asanda Phewa: thank you for your time, your sincerity and your integrity. Your courageous, honest and beautiful work continues to inspire me and my hope is that it will continue to inspire many others. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends who have stood by me through this journey. Your words of encouragement got me through challenging periods. This thesis is dedicated to my father and mother: my foundation, the people who have carried me through life with profoundly unselfish support. Thank you for teaching me the Value of education and for leading by example. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. v CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1 Museum of bottled sentiments: Expression, Purgation and Healing ................................ 1 The ‘beautiful pain syndrome’ ........................................................................................ 4 How this study proceeds ................................................................................................ 19 CHAPTER TWO: AFTER PAINS ............................................................................................ 22 A cultural theorising of the ‘now moment’ .................................................................... 22 The world to which Mbothwe, Moyo, Nyamza and Phewa belong ................................. 35 A brief review of literature ............................................................................................ 44 Affect: sentiments do things .......................................................................................... 45 Beauty and Pain ............................................................................................................ 47 The effects of our troubled history ................................................................................ 51 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission ..................................................................... 52 Beloved ......................................................................................................................... 56 Rites and Ritual ............................................................................................................. 59 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................... 62 Intuition ........................................................................................................................ 62 Positioning and Cultural Identity ................................................................................... 64 Observation and Comparing .......................................................................................... 73 Oral narrative/history .................................................................................................... 76 Beauty, pain and performance ....................................................................................... 78 Performance as methodology ........................................................................................ 84 CHAPTER FOUR: UNCOMFORTABLE ATTACHMENTS .......................................................... 90 Emotions in the ‘now moment’ ...................................................................................... 90 iii Uncomfortable Attachments ......................................................................................... 95 Unsettlement ................................................................................................................ 96 Unsettling Black Womanhood ....................................................................................... 97 Migrant unsettlement and home ................................................................................. 105 Unsettlement and sexual identity ................................................................................ 109 Anxiety ........................................................................................................................ 114 Anger .......................................................................................................................... 123 Hysteria ....................................................................................................................... 127 Vocality: ‘cries, songs and screams’ ............................................................................. 132