Bergville Stories
Performance history in South Africa
A play by Duma ka Ndlovu, premièred in 1995, staged by the playwright.
Deals with an incident that took place in 1956 when a group of policemen clashed with men in a rural black community in Natal. The policemen went to some dagga [marijuana] plantations near the village of Bergville to burn the crops, a source of (illegal) income for the villagers. A violent skirmish resulted in the death of five policemen and a number of the villagers. More than twenty men from the community were arrested, tried and hanged in Pretoria Central Prison. In his production Ka Ndlovu linked these historical events theatrically as a narrative device to the plight of hostel dwellers in Gauteng four decades later, the time of the production, and he staged it through riveting narrative, combined with stirring songs and vigorous dance routines.
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