Louis Botha

Louis Botha is a play in 5 acts by Alan Paton (1903-1988).

Original text

Written in 1932 (anonymously under the pen-name “Natalian”), then revised for entry in a competition in 1935.

The play revolves around General Louis Botha, South Africa‟s first Prime Minister, whom Paton admired. In the play, Paton depicts him as a model South African who transcends narrow ethnic boundaries in a flawed attempt to build a unified South African nation. The play opens with a scene set in the bitter final weeks of the Anglo-Boer war, in the darkest hour of the Afrikaner, and ends on the eve of the First World War, with Louis Botha as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, but estranged from his own people, having had to put down a rebellion in which his adoptive son is killed.

Performance history in South Africa

There is no record of any performance of the play.

Sources

Hermann Wittenberg. 2007. Alan Paton’s writing for the stage: towards a non-racial South African theatre. South African Theatre Journal, 1: 307-327.

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