Download or read book Between the Devil and the Deep written by Pieter-Dirk Uys and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2010-12-08 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘”Adapt or die!” PW Botha spat out at us from the television news. And so the new show was called Adapt or Dye.’ The comedy of Pieter-Dirk Uys has been with us for as long as we can remember. In this funny, witty and poignant memoir, he takes us on a journey through his life in the theatre - and the theatre in his life. We follow him from his early years as a stage manager and actor at The Space Theatre, via his ridiculous brushes with censorship, to the political satires that made him famous. Uys explains how his alter ego, Evita Bezuidenhout, came into being, as well as the other members of her extraordinary family. He takes us onto the film shoot of Skating on Thin Uys, into an interview with Nelson Mandela, and onto the stages of the world. We journey from the fictitious fun of Bapetikosweti, to the seriousness of his AIDS-awareness presentations at schools, to the quirky comfort of Evita se Perron in Darling. Illustrated with scenes from his plays and revues, the book will leave you feeling as if you’ve just seen a Pieter-Dirk Uys show: with lots of laughter, a bit of anger, and utter amazement at how this man (or woman) just keeps doing it.
Download or read book Taking Comedy Seriously written by Jennalee Donian and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-12-31 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores stand-up comedy as a relevant sociological phenomenon from a contemporary perspective, as both a symptom of neoliberal capitalism and the locus specificus of socio-political critique in the era of Empire. It draws a feasible connection between the conspicuous rise in the art form’s popularity over the past number of years and the dehumanizing and fracturing processes of the current dispensation that are increasingly becoming the defining experience of life in the contemporary era, and to which, understood in terms of the traditional humor theory of relief (of which Sigmund Freud is key), comedy serves as an obvious palliative. More than this, Taking Comedy Seriously: Stand-Up’s Dissident Potential in Mass Culture, in the Context of the Neoliberal Domain of 'Empire' questions the possibility of a contemporary aesthetics of humor, given that much of the art form is disseminated and controlled by the mass media, and as such complicit in its work. In particular, it argues that the ideological situation of global capitalism poses an obvious predicament for the possibility of a socio-politically efficacious stand-up comedy in that ironic and skeptical distance is already characteristic of postmodern cynicism, incorporated into the social fabric itself, effectively rendering the comedic technique of satire (synonymous with so-called ‘political comedy’) altogether appropriated, or at least compromised, and subsequently impotent. From where then does a site of resistance emerge? Through an analysis of a range of contemporary televisual, digital and literary examples from the comedic routines of American comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys, and South African born (and now American comedic talk-show sensation) Trevor Noah, this book argues that a contemporary ‘political comedy’ is reliant on a structuring aesthetic logic built around dissent, disruption and difference.
Download or read book The Travelling Rabbi written by Moshe Silberhaft and published by Jacana Media. This book was released on 2012 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation Tracing the journeys of the Travelling Rabbi, this book highlights Rabbi Silberhafts invaluable work in Africa, from caring for the graves of the forgotten and performing wedding ceremonies to providing kosher food and religious insight to various communities. Including numerous storiessome tragic, others humorous, but always fascinatingthis memoir is a celebration of the resilient people he encounters and a permanent record of the Jewish communities and personalities who would otherwise be forgotten.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Post Colonial Literatures in English written by Eugene Benson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 1950 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " ... Documents the history and development of [Post-colonial literatures in English, together with English and American literature] and includes original research relating to the literatures of some 50 countries and territories. In more than 1,600 entries written by more than 600 internationally recognized scholars, it explores the effect of the colonial and post-colonial experience on literatures in English worldwide.
Download or read book The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre written by Martin Middeke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa has a uniquely rich and diverse theatre tradition which has responded energetically to the country's remarkable transition, helping to define the challenges and contradictions of this young democracy. This volume considers the variety of theatre forms, and the work of the major playwrights and theatre makers producing work in democratic South Africa. It offers an overview of theatre pioneers and theatre forms in Part One, before concentrating on the work of individual playwrights in Part Two. Through its wide-ranging survey of indigenous drama written predominantly in the English language and the analysis of more than 100 plays, a detailed account is provided of post-apartheid South African theatre and its engagement with the country's recent history. Part One offers six overview chapters on South African theatre pioneers and theatre forms. These include consideration of the work of artists such as Barney Simon, Mbongeni Ngema, Phyllis Klotz; the collaborations of William Kentridge and the Handspring Puppet Company; the work of Magnet Theatre, and of physical and popular community theatre forms. Part Two features chapters on twelve major playwrights, including Athol Fugard, Reza de Wet, Lara Foot, Zakes Mda, Yaël Farber, Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, Mike van Graan and Brett Bailey. It includes a survey of emerging playwrights and significant plays, and the book closes with an interview with Aubrey Sekhabi, the Artistic Director of the South African State Theatre in Pretoria. Written by a team of over twenty leading international scholars, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre is a unique resource that will be invaluable to students and scholars from a range of different disciplines, as well as theatre practitioners.
Download or read book Elections Erections written by Pieter-Dirk Uys and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2011-03-28 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At last, Pieter-Dirk Uys, South Africa’s most famous political satirist, entertainer and AIDS activist, has penned a memoir. He takes us back to his upbringing in apartheid South Africa, his early days in the theatre, and the birth of his alter ego, Evita Bezuidenhout, the ambassador to the fictitious homeland of Bapetikosweti. He revisits his political satire, which exposed the absurdities of Whites Only policies and the ridiculousness of the fear surrounding them. He also writes frankly about his sexual journeys in a conservative, Calvinistic society that forbade interracial sex and homosexuality. With the end of apartheid and the fall of the old tyrants, Uys wondered, did he still have a job to do? But a new democracy comes with its own challenges and absurdities, and the government continues to write his scripts for him. Whether he is educating voters or informing the youth about the dangers of HIV/AIDS, he goes to war against ignorance and complacency, brandishing his unique weapons: laughter, compassion ... and a plastic penis! This is a book about journeys, both geographical and personal, a document of Pieter-Dirk Uys’s love affair with South Africa and its people. Frank and controversial, hilarious and humane, Elections & Erections expresses his passion and anger towards present circumstances, and his hope and optimism for the future.
Download or read book Performing Whitely in the Postcolony written by Megan Lewis and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to perform whiteness in the postcolonial era? To answer this question—crucial for understanding the changing meanings of race in the twenty-first century—Megan Lewis examines the ways that members of South Africa’s Afrikaner minority have performed themselves into, around, and out of power from the colonial period to the postcolony. The nation’s first European settlers and in the twentieth century the architects of apartheid, since 1994 Afrikaners have been citizens of a multicultural, multilingual democracy. How have they enacted their whiteness in the past, and how do they do so now when their privilege has been deflated? Performing Whitely examines the multiple speech acts, political acts, and theatrical acts of the Afrikaner volk or nation in theatrical and public life, including pageants, museum sites, film, and popular music as well as theatrical productions. Lewis explores the diverse ways in which Afrikaners perform whitely, and the tactics they use, including nostalgia, melodrama, queering, abjection, and kitsch. She first investigates the way that apartheid’s architects leveraged whiteness in support of their nation-building efforts in the early twentieth century. In addition to re-enacting national pilgrimages of colonial-era migrations and building massive monuments at home, Afrikaner nationalists took their show to the United States, staging critical events of the Boer War at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. A case study of the South African experience, Performing Whitely also offers parables for global whitenesses in the postcolonial era.
Download or read book The Columbia Guide to South African Literature in English Since 1945 written by Gareth Cornwell and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the outset, South Africa's history has been marked by division and conflict along racial and ethnic lines. From 1948 until 1994, this division was formalized in the National Party's policy of apartheid. Because apartheid intruded on every aspect of private and public life, South African literature was preoccupied with the politics of race and social engineering. Since the release from prison of Nelson Mandela in 1990, South Africa has been a new nation-in-the-making, inspired by a nonracial idealism yet beset by poverty and violence. South African writers have responded in various ways to Njabulo Ndebele's call to "rediscover the ordinary." The result has been a kaleidoscope of texts in which evolving cultural forms and modes of identity are rearticulated and explored. An invaluable guide for general readers as well as scholars of African literary history, this comprehensive text celebrates the multiple traditions and exciting future of the South African voice. Although the South African Constitution of 1994 recognizes no fewer than eleven official languages, English has remained the country's literary lingua franca. This book offers a narrative overview of South African literary production in English from 1945 to the postapartheid present. An introduction identifies the most interesting and noteworthy writing from the period. Alphabetical entries provide accurate and objective information on genres and writers. An appendix lists essential authors published before 1945.
Download or read book SA Literature written by and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Contemporary Farce on the Global Stage written by David Gram and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-04-09 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Farce on the Global Stage provides audiences and practitioners a detailed survey of how the genre of farce has evolved in the 21st century. Often dismissed as frivolous, farce speaks a universal language, with the power to incisively interrogate our world through laughter. Unlike farces of the past, where a successful resolution was a given and we could laugh uproariously at adulterous behaviour, farce no longer guarantees an audience a happy ending where everything works out. Contemporary farce is no longer ‘diverting us’ with laughter. It is reflecting the fractured world around us. With a foreword by award-winning playwright Ken Ludwig, the book introduces readers to the Mechanics of Farce, and the ‘Four Ps,’ which are key elements for understanding, appreciating, and exploring the form. The Five Doors to Contemporary Farce identify five major categories into which farces fall. Behind each door are a wide selection of plays, modern and contemporary examples from all over the world, written by a diverse group of playwrights who traverse gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Supplementing each section are comments, observations, and reflections from award-winning playwrights, directors, actors, designers, dramaturgs, and scholars. Designed specifically to give theatre-makers a rounded understanding that will underpin their own productions, this book will also be of use to theatre and performance studies students.
Download or read book The Farce of the Fart and Other Ribaldries written by Jody Enders and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was there more to medieval and Renaissance comedy than Chaucer and Shakespeare? Bien sûr. For a real taste of saucy early European humor, one must cross the Channel to France. There, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the sophisticated met the scatological in popular performances presented by roving troupes in public squares that skewered sex, politics, and religion. For centuries, the scripts for these outrageous, anonymously written shows were available only in French editions gathered from scattered print and manuscript sources. Now prize-winning theater historian Jody Enders brings twelve of the funniest of these farces to contemporary English-speaking audiences in "The Farce of the Fart" and Other Ribaldries. Enders's translation captures the full richness of the colorful characters, irreverent humor, and over-the-top plotlines, all in a refreshingly uncensored American vernacular. Those who have never heard the one about the Cobbler, the Monk, the Wife, and the Gatekeeper should prepare to be shocked and entertained. "The Farce of the Fart" and Other Ribaldries is populated by hilarious characters high and low. For medievalists, theater practitioners, and classic comedy lovers alike, Enders provides a wealth of information about the plays and their history. Helpful details abound for each play about plot, character development, sets, staging, costumes, and props. This performance-friendly collection offers in-depth guidance to actors, directors, dramaturges, teachers, and their students. "The Farce of the Fart" and Other Ribaldries puts fifteenth-century French farce in its rightful place alongside Chaucer, Shakespeare, commedia dell'arte, and Molière—not to mention Monty Python. Vive la Farce!
Download or read book Farce about Uys written by Pieter-Dirk Uys and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Just the Ticket written by Percy Tucker and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book South African Theatre Journal written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Textures written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Publications Appeal Board written by South Africa. Publications Appeal Board and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
