Resurrection can refer to two plays produced in South Africa

Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy (1905)

The original text

The story of Katusha, a country girl, who is seduced and abandoned by Prince Nekludov. Nekludov finds himself, years later, on a jury trying the same Katusha for a crime he now realizes his actions drove her to. He follows her to imprisonment in Siberia, intent on redeeming her and himself as well.

Based on the novel Воскресеніе, Leo Tolstoy's last novel, a version first published in 1899, though the complete text was only published in Russia in 1936 and in English in 1938. It is known in English translation by various names, including Resurrection and The Awakening)[1].

Translations and adaptations

In 1930 Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko also did a stage version for the Moscow Art Theatre.

Filmed a number of times, it has also seen a number of operatic versions, early ones such as French composer Albert Roussel's 1903 tone poem Résurrection and Italian composer Franco Alfano's Risurrezione (1904), followed by later versions include Vzkriesenie (1960) by Slovak composer Ján Cikker, and Resurrection by American composer Tod Machover.

Performance history in South Africa

1905: Performed by the William Haviland and his company in the Opera House, Cape Town, in June.

Sources

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: p.422

Go to ESAT Bibliography

Resurrection by Richard Rive (1966)

The original text

A one-act play, adapted by Richard Rive () from his short story of the same name, it deals with the ambiguities of the "coloured" designation - a theme which Rive will return to in Buckingham Palace, District Six.

The play was first performed in April 1966 by Experimental Theatre at the University of Columbia and published in Short African Plays (Ed: Cosmo Pieterse, 1968 ) by Heinemann and later again in Selected Writings (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1976).

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

Presented by the University of the Witwatersrand as part of a double bill with All's Well at the National Arts Festival Student Drama in 1985 starring Jacquiline Dommisse, Gilda Blacher, Niel Lessick. Directed by Graeme Messer, stage manager Mary Gill, lighting Paul Abrahams, company manager Morag Todd.