Dirty Work
Dirty Work is a play by Maishe Maponya (1951-2021).
Contents
The original text
A solo play, shaped in rehearsal with actor John Maytham, this is a study of a security advisor addressing the audience and spouting white fears and preconceptions about black South Africans, while disturbing off-stage sounds keep intruding.
First performed in 1984, the text was published in Doing Plays for a Change (a collection of Maponya's plays, introduced by Ian Steadman), by the Witwatersrand University Press in 1995.
Translations and adaptations
Performance history in South Africa
1984: First performed by the Bahumutsi Theatre Group in The Laager at the Market Theatre in July, in a double-bill - Dirty Work/Gangsters - with another Maponya play, Gangsters. Directed by Maponya with Charles Comyn. Lighting design by Andy Mazibela.
1985: The Dirty Work/Gangsters double-bill performed once more by the Bahumutsi Theatre Group in The Laager at the Market Theatre in February. Again directed by Maponya, but with with with Jon Maytham as the actor.
Sources
Ruphin Coudyzer. 2023. Annotated list of his photographs of Market Theatre productions. (Provided by Coudyzer)
Pat Schwartz 1988. The Best of Company: The Story of Johannesburg's Market Theatre. Johannesburg: Ad Donker.
Ian Steadman (Ed.) 1995. Doing Plays for a Change (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press).
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