Sam Mhangwane

Sam Mhangwane (19**-) Playwright and director.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Along with Gibson Kente, he is the creator of the “township musical” style popular entertainment. His plays were popular and generated large audiences. Mhangwane saw drama as a means to communicate ideas leading to the correcting of social ills in black society.

His melodramatic tale entitled The Unfaithful Woman, which premiered in 1966, is reputed to be the longest running play in South African theatre history, still going strong in the mid-eighties. Blame Yourself (1970) was another success.

Mhangwane also ran courses in acting for young black performers in Johannesburg at his People's Theatre Association, among them was Peter Ngwenya.

He worked with SATO, and his work was rejected as cheap escapist entertainment by SASO and the intellectuals of the BCM.

In the 2000s he ran Drakensberg Promotions, organisers of jazz festivals.

Sources

Beeld, 18 March 1991.

Sowetan, 17 November 2008.

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