Mara is the title used for numerous literary products over the years, usually as a reference to the Biblical Mara (or Marah), a place of bitter water, bitterness and murmuring against God by the Israelites.

At least at least four South African plays bear the name:

Mara by Abraham Matthee

The original text

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

Mara by Herman Charles Bosman

The original text

An English one-act play, named for the Biblical well of bitterness, it was written under the pseudonym Herman Malan. It deals with the issue of incest in the form of a prose duologue in two scenes between a sister and brother.

Published in 1932 by the African Publications and Courier News Agency, Wardrobe Court, 146 Queen Victoria Street, London E.C. and in Young Bosman - the Anniversary Edition, edited by Craig MacKenzie, published by Human & Rousseau, 2003.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

Mara by J.F.W. Grosskopf

This is title used for the play Oorlog is Oorlog when it was directed by Anna Neethling-Pohl for Volksteater in 1941.

See the entry on Oorlog is Oorlog

Mara by S.J. Rheeder

The original text

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

Sources

South African Opinion, 1(4), 1944

Lional Abrahams. 2001. "Mr. Bosman: A Protégé's Memoir of Herman Charles Bosman", English in Africa Vol. 28, No. 2 (Oct., 2001), pp. 11-47 (37 pages)[1]

Nel, Frederik Jacobus 1972. Die Kaapstadse Afrikaanse Toneelvereniging, 1934-1962. Unpublished master’s thesis. Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch.

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