The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre
The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre is a publication edited by Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer and Greg Homann and published in London by Bloomsbury, 2015.
The aim of this collection is to discuss theatre in South Africa since the first democratic elections by focussing on new plays written and produced in the country since 1994. The volume is 384 in length and contains 20 essays written by critics, artists and academics, dealing with more than 100 South African plays.
Preceded by a contextualising Introduction by the editors, the essays fall into two broadly defined groups.
The first group consists of a miscelaneous set of six studies looking at a range of alternative forms and themes.
These are "The Pioneers" (Sarah Roberts), "Contemporary Collaborators I: Kentridge/Taylor/Handspring" (Jane Taylor), "Contemporary Collaborators II: Magnet Theatre" (Yvette Hutchison), Physical Theatre (Robyn Sassen), "Popular Community Theatre" (Emma Durdenand "The Theatre Makers in One-Person Format" (Veronica Baxter).
The second set of essays deal with 13 individual playwright/theatre makers, plus a few upcoming writers.
The writers discussed are: Athol Fugard (by Dennis Walder), Reza de Wet (Anton Kreuger), Paul Slabolepszy (Adrienne Sichel), Zakes Mda (Kene Igweonu), Lara Foot (Loren A. Kruger), Mike van Graan (Nrent Meersman), Craig Higginson, Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, Brett Bailey, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Fatima Dike, and Yaël Farber. The section is then rounded off by a accomplished roundup of "Emerging Playwrights and Significant Plays" and an interview with the theatre manager and playwright Aubrey Sekhabi.
