One time brother

INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 1/85 South Africa Don Mattera One time brother 'Our actors were called in by the security police and questioned about their involvement in the Community Awareness Theatre and their participation in the play'. In August 1984 distribution of the poster-play was banned. The poster of Don Mattera's play One Time Brother, illustrated by Mzwakhe (next page) was published in June 1984 by the Open School, Johannesburg. It was put up at bus stops and street corners, in cafes and libraries. Some were torn down, specially by shop-keepers who feared retaliation by the authorities. In late August its distribution was banned by the South African Publications Board. But the play itself had by then been performed to between 18,000 and 19,000 people in some fifteen different township community centres and church halls, from June 1983 to August 1984. One Time Brother was an Open School production. Open School was started in 1971 by Clive Lyttleton, while Assistant Director of the Institute of Race Relations. In its first few years it ran a series of seminars for racially integrated groups of young people. Both the integrated nature of the groups — unique at that time — and the radical content of the seminars, which covered issues such as racism, colonialism, economics and history, caused Open School to come under severe pressure from the authorities. Its present director, Colin Smuts, joined in 1974 and took Open School in a somewhat different direction. He was interested in developing the arts and culture as a development education programme, and in drawing in a different type of youth: working-class blacks from the townships. The youths themselves identified their needs: they wanted help with their school subjects — additional tuition, and drama, art, music and dance and so on. The Open School's theatre programme was at first performed in township parks, but with the introduction of the Riotous Assembly Act, following the 16 June 1976 Soweto uprising, outdoor performances were no longer possible and Open School began to perform in church halls and community centres. The production One Time Brother grew, directly from Open School's dramatic activities. > So too did its poster. In launching the poster Colin Smuts wrote: 'One of the major aims of the Open School has been to provide popular accessible media to the community in the form of plays, performances and exhibitions. The poster format is an extension of this aim. At first we thought of publishing the play in booklet form. But in discussing this, we realised that the reading public in South Africa is still at a minority stage, and that if we wanted to reach and stimulate the broader community, we would have to find an alternative. Thus the posterplay was born. Part of our campaign is to place these posters on walls and bus stops where many people gather to induce them to read; hopefully people will read and be stimulated by our message.' During a visit to Open School in September 1984, Don Mattera talked to Anne Walmsley (Index's Africa Researcher) about the origins of the play and its performances, and about his current situation as a writer. Don Mattera: In early 1983 the government had started plans to have this tri-cameral parliament and had also hoped to woo in the 'coloured' and Indian people. Then a group of concerned individuals, among them medical doctors, clinical psychologists, spoke to me and asked it we could start some sort of theatre that would be able to reach the people. So the Community Awareness Theatre was born. At its helm was a medical practitioner called Enrol Holland, known for his opposition to the system in South Africa. What is of interest is that these are so-called 'coloured' people who felt that their community needed to be awoken to the realities of the elections and what th.ey would entail for the future, especially as forces of divide and rule. So they needed a resource centre. I told them about Colin and we got together here. The Open School agreed to act as a resource centre for the Community Awareness Theatre and I was commissioned to write One Time Brother. Since then it has taken many forms: while it was being workshopped, and it also changed with the times, and as the actors changed. AW: When public performances began, did you experience any interference? Not directly. At all the venues we had the very strong presence of the police, and also agents would come in to listen and record for their masters. Our actors and participants in the organisation were called in by the Security Police and questioned at length about their involvement in the Community Awareness Theatre and their participation in the play. Were they ever stopped from taking part? No, not that I know of. Because they could never lay their hands on the script and you can't ban an abstraction. But we could see that it was leading up to a point where they would want to see the script, they needed something concrete to work on. However, at one meeting in Davidsonville — this area has a very strong mental strain put on it by its 'coloured' leaders, who threaten them with arrest etc and keep theatre and cultural events away from them — at the start we had only about 16 people. And then I went from door to door, roping in these youngsters who seemed very afraid to come because they'd been told that it was Communist business that was carving on there. However they came, some of them carrying their weapons, knives and pangas, and came into the hall. Four of the young boys had been told by their parents to enlist in the South Africa Defence Force. They had already filled in the form, and they had to take them away on the Monday. That was the Friday. And outside the hall, after they had seen our play, they tore up these application forms: because it was so real. For the first time we had brought the holocaust to their doorstep with a very strong and vibrant political language, which pulled no punches. What sort of audience did you mostly play to? The audience was particularly mixed in many areas, but we had gone out to play to the so-called classified 'coloured' and Indian areas since they were the people who were going to vote, or should not vote. We used a different type of Brechtian approach where there was community involvement. Our actors would come up from the stage and ask members of the audience how they would react, how they would choose what they would do if they were in the positions of the actors. And the response of people in the audience was tremendous. Some people even asked for the death of the person represented by the President of the President's Council, who was a very obnoxious, very bad man, strongly acted by a medical doctor who had never had any training as an actor or any exposure to the stage. Then after the play, it was question time, and time for individuals to say how they feel about the situation. Everywhere we went the response was tremendous, especially in the very low income group areas. In areas where people were very rich or aspiring to that type of thing, we had a 31 "Reforms? Reforms my black foot. It's more like deforms and good only to people who have been blinded by all the silken o rubbish. Which man or group when he or it has such vast political and military powers, will share it with the people he rules? Power sharing is yet another of the many catch phrases the regime uses to deceive people, black or white. Show me change and I'll show you a snake that changes its skin but retains it poison." ONE TIME BROTHER by DON MATTERA "I'm really puzzled by all this. I know things have worsened in this country but you have such a way with words. My mother is just like you. She says that all oppressed people: whether they are so-called Coloureds or Indians or Africans, are all brothers - especially as they are all being lashed by the same whip. Even some whites too, she says are being badly treated because they identify with Blacks." "Your mother speaks true and yet I sense a note of doubt in your voice my friend. I hope all that talk about Coloureds and Indians being different from other blacks is not going to your head. (Pointing with his finger on his head). Because all that talk is a lot of tripe. A lot of bullshit". A PROJECT OF THE OPEN SCHOOL STRECT AND COMMUNITY THEATRE PROGRAMME CHARACTERS:(Cast of six) 2 Women 2 Sons A man called 'Presidents Council'. A man called Hashim. FIRST SCENE:- Two women just out of the hospital sit on a bench waiting/or a bus. One lives in Eldorado Park or Western or Newclare or Coronationville or any so called 'coloured township' where the play will be performed. y MA-SOWETO: "I don't believe all the propaganda but there's been a tot of . fraternisation between the Government and the Indians and Coloured people". "I call it love-affairs; sickly and destructive!" (At this moment Pee Cee enters in a brash manner strutting like a peacock he looks with contempt at Luvuyo (who spits) and moves ever smilingly towards Joy (who appears to be bewildered by all the talk and performance by Luvuyo). "It is good that we gave birth to our sons on the same day. This is sure proof that we are mothers no matter what our colour or tribe, we all give birth the same way, through suffering and pain". MA-ELDORADO: "Yes Ma-Soweto; despite the laws thai separate and divide our people, we are of the same flesh and blood. And it is my wish and hope that our sons my Joy and your son Luvuyo wilt grow up to be true African Brothers. MA-SOWETO: "Well! Well! if it isn't my long-lost land-genoot Mr Bruin - SuidAfrikaner. My fellow-traveller and Christian comrade whose father fought side by side with my father at Alamein against the Nazis. I know that we speak the same Taal. Unlike your friend here whose children hate Afrikaans and even gave their fives fighting bullets with stones because they hated and still abhor our moeder-taal Afrikaans: yours and mine". (Angry and defiant; he moves towards Pee Cee); Yebo my sister what you say is indeed true. Our sons share the same blood just as we are children of Africa - Mothers of The New Dawn that mu^t come tomorrow for our Nation. (The women embrace each other as the curtain falls. A record of Miriam Makeba(West Wind) 'Unite Us Don 7 Divide Us'plays in the background). SCENE TWO: (Anxiously) "Yes, we blacks hate Afrikaans besides it is not older than our African language. In fact it is not a language at all, but some concoction. We chose to die than be forced to speak or Ieam it. History will be our judge." (The boys are now grown up and educated and they discuss the situation in South Africa as it affects them in their different community environments. They specifically speak about those things that separate them, like the Race Classification Laws, the Croup Areas Act; Coloured and Bantu Education. Influx Controls, Pass Laws and Squatter Bills.) (Pointing to Hash "Now they've dra( (Turning to the au "A lot of hot air if you ask me. These Bantus never seem to learn who the real Baas is. Stones cannot overthrow our Government, much less hot air. We whites are going to rule this land for a 1000 years and we want you; (he pats Joy on the back). We want you Brown people and our Indian friends to share in this rule of a 1000 years." JOY & HASHIM "No! Take mine i dark comrades. "A 1000 years? But I'll nev r live so long and neither % ill you. Jislaaik a 1000 years; that i: a long time to rule". LUVUYO: "Over our dead bodies". PEE-CEE: "Even that too my black friend. Even that too!" "Well what n PEE-CEE: ACT II SCENE ONE (Then turning to Joy he says): "Kom neefdinge loop now 'n bietjie skeef virjulle kleurlinge, but there's a rosy road ahead if you join me in the system. You can share power, be your own boss in your own area and enjoy all the good things in life. We will even consider scrapping the Mixed Marriages and Immorality Acts. Think of it, you could marry one of my sisters living in Mayfair, Newlands or Brixtnn (Pee Cee laughs mockingly) "Think of it. Aldaai witvleis- white meat if you join hands with me, old sweet Pee Cee!" JOY: LUVUYO: "Don't let him fool you Joy there's more than meets the eye. He has not told you everything. There is still the price you must pay for all those concessions and bribery. Ask him brother!" "I telt you bra Joy it's tough on us Blacks. They are forever making taws todivide and crush us, always shoving us this way and that way and forcing us into untidy pigeon-holes - Zulu, Xhosa. the other coloured and so on. I still cherish those days when blacks lived in cosmopolitan areas like Sophiatown, Alex. Fietas and Malay Camp." *Ja. my Folks still speak about those good old days. It's just like you say we al] lived together like a happy family (shaking his head). The Laanies have us where they want us. I know it's not all the Laanies but there's so many bad ones, you never check the good ones." (Advancing closer to the audience says): "Yes my brother, jus; liVe there are good Laanies there are also some dirty blacks: people who sell out on their kind because of money and other material benefits; not only the homeland puppets but also many class conscious blacks. Selling out is rife man. The system is cashing in on dividing the people. Remember the 1976 uprising: remember how they used the hostel dwellers to kill and brutalize their own people. Now they are busy sowing more seeds of tribal haired and class distinction." JOY: "You mean like the Inkatha and the Laboi* Party breakup? LUVUYO: "No, no that's not my idea of relevant unification: a group of so-called Zulus. Indians and Coloured factions do not a solidarity front make my brother. I'm talking about this latest disease hatched up by the apartheid regime - The new South African Constitutional system." JOY: (Jumping up as if he had been sitting on a hot coal savs): "Yes. I know who you mean - PEE CEE". LUVUYO: "Yebo m'fowethu. you have said it. It's Mr Separation himself. Mr Pee Cee or otherwise known as "President's Council'." JOY: "Pee Cee has been saying some good things these days, things which many newspapers are calling reforms, changes and power- (Lw uyo grabs Joy and leads him to Pee Cee who is now smiling cyni ally). "Later! Later! That part comes much later. But first you must join me in the new dispensation so that your Coloured Nation r d my Afrikaner Nation can stand side by side against the union enemies that want our rich and beautiful country for themselves". "Will you join me my Brown Brother (his hands reach out towards Joy). "No! Don't take his hand. Take my hand instead! Our hands belong together like our blood. Your mother and my mother are bloodsisters. You and I are one. We are both oppressed, humiliated and denied our human worth by the likes of Pee Cee and the majority of the White electorate. My hand, dark brother take it and let us fight together and die together if need be!" "Vat my hand broer. Daai Bantu (Shaking his hec lifting his fists in lal. Kom saam met my". Joy then moves towards the audience to ask them what they would do if they were to choose between Luvuyo and the President's Council, he decides to climb off the stage. Hashim who portrays the so-called Indian counterpart, is sitting among the audience. 'Joy moves towards him and asks what fie would do if given a choice between Luvuyo and the President's Council. He reacts and mounts the stage counting several loose coins which he lets fall. And, as he bends to pick them up, P.C. smiting as if he had just seen a long lost friend, stretches out his arms towards Hashim, P.C. also pushes Luvuyo out of the way . , . "Aah haa! If it isn't our loyal and peace-loving Coolie... Oops . . . I mean Indian friend just back from your neat fruit and food shop in the city. How happy I am to see you counting your profits in public for once. We are having a slight problem here. This Hotnot. . . Oops . . . I mean this Kleurling pellie. is in doubt whether or not to join my new dispensation. He is even asking that stupid audience out there to help him choose. What do they know? (Luvuyo nods his determination): • I I I I I I I LUVUYO: - I I I JOY: I I iem. but 1 have already decided. My :ult. You see Mr President's Council, as not to see the real t uth which is can be no wrong choice for us in this re going to join me or that stupid Bantu e Bruin Afrikaner? Tell me, are you lence). Luvuyo visibly shaken by Peetry to fool brother Hashim. He's not .ropaganda. Yoif ve bulldozed his life homes and trampled on his dignity. e says:) lot forget the legacy and history of ir forefathers went through since they in the sugar-cane fields of N a t a l . . . " lancyiaiK. iisiimeigoisomeuungoutoiiitormyseti. inatiswnyi opted to follow Hendrickse into Pee Cee's arms at least we are going to live better and be almost white.' 'Hendrickse and Rajbansi? The people have rejected them at every turn. Hundreds, thousands have spoken of them with bitter contempt and vilification. I will see them at the African Nuremburg, next to those other Puppets and yes-men. Perhaps you and I will not meet at that Nuremburg, but on the battlefield.' i I I I I I I I "The battlefield? Do you mean that you are going to fight against me your brother and friend just because I chose to join the President's Council and wear this army uniform?" I I I (Luvuyo does not answer, but walks away to a far corner of the stage) I I I I I I I LUVUYO: Yes when next we meet it may be in battle. But before we part, tell me what docs your mother think of you? What did she say? Was she happy? I JOY: *My mother is my mother. She understands'. I I I I LUVUYO: i do not believe that! She knows the truth. She was in the struggle and has known much suffering like so many great people of the old freedom movement. What did she really say? Tell me the truth! I I I I (A subdued Joy drops his head and shouts): I My mother is just like you. Tearing at me with words that cut me deep but I am determined not to suffer like she did. I have chosen Pee Cee against her will and against the will of the people. I'm sick and tired of suffering! Can you understand that? Can you? I I I I I (Joy then grabs Luvuyo by the arms, jerks him violently and says): I I I I 'I'm no sell out dammit! I'm tired of second class status; tired of suffering. Can you understand that? I'm tired of being in the middle. I'm tired of suffering! I I I I I • I I I I J0Y: LUVUYO: 'I can. I can. but that is not the way. Hold my hand. Ho'd on to me my dark brother and let us fight for a higher cause. It is not too late; hold my hand, reach out for your mother's sake; for (he sake of liberation and for our commitment to our motherland." ' I I - (Just then Pee Cee enters and walks around the stage and lifis Joy's head with his finger) "I told him that we would meet in battle and now he is dying and 1 will follow. The tragedy of it all lies thereon the ground (Pointing to Joy). Soon the whole land will be gripped in the jaws of deaih because of the folly and evil of separation My One Tim*: Brother! (Joy shouts from the ground): 'Luvuyo, my brother, save me I'm dying! I'm dying! I'm dying! Save (Luvuyo rushes back to the dying Joy and iifh h,» ,n his arms) 'I'll follow you soon, my brother: I'll follow you M>IM! (Luvuyo stumps overjoy; his arms falling limply). A smiling hands-rubbing Pee Cee makes his entry. He grins happily all thltime rubbing his hands. He looks at the slumped bodies of Joy and Luvuyo and starts laughing loudly jerking and holding his stomach. Hashim enters, looks at the bodies: I "What a black and bloody scene this is! Brother kills brother and mothers shall weep and PC? PC laughs PC laughs his hollow laughter behind the backs of dead men and I? I have been guilty! I have been blind! . Blinded by my group areas prison: Manipulated by a mad dog (looks at PC) with mad dreams of supremacy. NO!!! This must end. I shall not be party to murder. Who is to blame if the oppression is on you? We are . . . (bends down to pick up gun) When PC has finished laughing those that he has oppressed shall know the a n s w e r . . . " (PC quickly draws a gun from his pocket and shoots and kills Hashim). I I I irs; years of toil and sweat and pass ign led by my brethren in the struggle. our women-folk took up cudgels and f eyes. Yes, 1 remember... Who but >rget? other. You and Joy cannot leave me. ake mylhands . . . Come!" vuyo and Hashim and shaking his vo belong with me. Here beside me •member Idi Amin; that Black Hitler lians in Uganda . . . Every part of telly to Indians. Stand with that Bantu / hand, and you, and your wise leaders I Dasoo, will be your own bosses in other homeland creations." ito this shit as well. (He then moves towards the audience and points to the bodies). PEE-CEE: v and Hashim both ask): lunch-drunk people out there what to md!" lands belong together. Take my hand "Yes, yes, that mad Coolie with fire in his head has now got lead in his belly. Daai Hotnot was dom! Daai Bantu was mal! En nou is die Koetie ook vrek! My plans have worked out well, soon they will be at each other's throats while me and my people look on from the sidelines from our safe, white homes and ivory towers. Let them wipe each other out in our name; for our survival. A 1000 years! A 1000 years! And the stupid Hotnots, the mad Bantus and bang-gat Koelies will have vanished from the face of our beloved SuidAfrika!" 'What is that terrorist Bantu saying to you? Watch out for his hotair. People like him are the greatest enemies of Suid-Afrika! Die Donderse Revolutionaries gee my *n pyn in my agter-end. We have a good place for them, a four star Island with the rest of those terrorists." LUVUYO: "Get away from us or I will kill you with my bare hands! You have enticed my brother to join you but your days are coming to an end.' PEE-CEE: 'A 1000 years! A 1000 years my bruin Afrikaner neef! A 1000 (he stands a shouts): years!' V dressed in army gear and weapons ence and marches up and down a Jew and he grins obsequiously. Luvuyo ving around him. Glaring at Joy's machine gun; he shakes his head in LUVUYO: he President's Council? So you have :kery and sweet-talk? How could you :ni our mother's made on the day we I Luvuyo - brothers! One blood, one jected those bonds which bound our tion to our cause? How could you my ction Luvuyo. I didn't hold it against ma, Se'oe, Mphephu and fhe rest of n collaboration with the state. You >r YOUR people about breaking the r had anything in my life; always The do we possess? I have struggled too natie Vlei and Western. Then look at election Park before you accuse me of >od knot between us!" nd places his right-hand across his heart and (Joy jumps up and shouts): Suid-Afrika! Suid-Afrika! •A 1000 years! "n Duisend jaar my baas!' (Joy then moves towards Pee Cee who hugs him, leaving Luvuyo in a lonely comer. Luvuyo moves towards them and shouts.) (The two mothers enter and both look down at their sons. There is no trace of sadness on their faces but their eyes widen when they see Pee Cee. They rush at him and throw him to the floor. Pee Cee groans and is subdued. The women put their feet on him in full view of the audience). 'Go my one-time brother, my one-time friend. Go, you whose blood is one with mine. How we grew up together under the same dismal sun; laughing and playing in the dust of childhood. How we held each other warmly so that people felt the fire-glow of our comradeship. Go my one-time brother, darkness has fallen on you. Go and when next we meet, it will not be with joy in the street, but as enemies in battle, you in the name of Pee Cee and me in the cause of liberation... Go, Go, (Pointing) my one-time brother. Go my onetime friend.' (Joy breaks away to go to Luvuyo with his arms outstretched Pee Cee grabs him around the waist and pulls him back). /touts loudly towards the audience en) •PB MA-SOWETO; you talk of those homeland puppets tories of deception. They are not our eople. Those men have already been day, someday - we will meet them at . They will be judged just like the "This is where Pee Cee and all the oppression and exploitation belong. Under the people's angry and determined feet: under the might of the workers who keep this country alive. Organisations ;ind individuals must not be allowed to continue dividing the workers. The time for unity is now! (Ma-Eldorado raises her fist in the air and shouts): > the one in which the Nazis who vere tried and jailed! •iting his teeth shouts in anger and se sentences. "Unity or this!" (pointing to ihe bodies) Kom neef. Daai Bantu is mal. Kom! Kom! There is a good life waiting for you come! Come, time is running out. That Bantu is mad . . . Mad! aut 'Your' people and 'My' people, ifference between us. Your skin may • air softer but are we not both black mothers but different fathers. I don't selection areas - They are merely uo. Just like Bosmont, Fleurhof and 'ark. 1 am more concerned with the e establishment of a just, democratic (The curtain falls and immediately there are sounds of gunfire and bombing in the background. The shooting grows louder and louder as the curtain opens. The scene is enacted in the dark.) '. I stopped believing in that kind of (Luvuyo then leaves the body and addresses the audience): (The groans of a man dying are heard and as the lighting on the stage gets a yellow treatment, we see two figures move towards the audience almost within touching distance.) 'My one-time brother, my one-time friend! MA-ELDORADO: "Must we wait for things to end like this. Brother killing brother sister selling-out on sister. Is this what we want forour children th;u they become the Cains and Abels of apartheid, capitalist dominainm and the madness of racism and class? Will we black people ne» cr learn? People like the Hendrickses and Currys and ihe RajbunMs are on the payroll of oppression and outcasts of the nation. They are the tools of the President's Council. Pee Cee's puppet prophets (Ma-Soweto takes Ma-Eldorado's hand and they move up to the audience where they exclaim): Unite us, don't divide us! (The strains ofNkosi Sikelele sound sofily in the background ami then crescendo to a full blast as the curtain falls unlit the music M absorbed by the audience). CENSORSHIP 1/85 h Africa Czechoslovakia Barbara Day response, to the point where people to fight us; they said we were iting and called us Communistand agents of Russia. are your plans for new writing: are g to do more community plays? How uitobiography and your poetry? 'Kafka is no longer staged in Prague, but behind the scenes he can )f things have happened. You know, : ill-fated MWASA (Media Workers be found everywhere' tion of South Africa) strike at the March 1983 where 240 of myTheatre people in Western Europe have Theatre, it was an example of the way the es were summarily fired I decided to often felt envious of the prestige and Czech theatre under the Austro-Hungarian protest. And then I banded together popularity of the theatre in the socialist Empire encouraged nationalist feeling. lys to fight against the Star in an bloc countries, not least in Czechoslovakia. Another method was to glorify the heroic because I felt that the sackings were On the one hand there are impressive state past, as in Smetana's opera Libus"e, where nd that they were immoral. It was a subsidies for a wide range of theatrical the legendary heroine foretells a glorious nell for me in many things. I was activity; on the other, a public which for future for the city of Prague. Elsewhere, in acklisted. I have applied for 23 jobs, historical reasons finds it as natural to visit the cafes chantants and the cabarets, more n't get one. All the newspapers it the theatre as to turn on the television. An spontaneous and direct sketches, songs and are afraid to hire me. Since then I example of the former was the recent parodies provoked an anti-authoritarian ed my hand at a little community reconstruction of the National Theatre, a response. Censorship, less rigid in the jer called Roots, to see if I couldn't seven-year project into which tremendous 'unofficial' theatre, often overlooked such n that and also serve the community resources of manpower, materials and devices as visual jokes; a song with an ing to fill the gaps that the white money were poured. But the very popularity innocuous text ('Everyone likes a bit on the pers, white-owned newspapers — of the theatre sometimes causes the side') took on a different meaning when the hey called themselves black — were authorities to take action which seems to us performer wore the uniform of an Austrian general. Many of these performers became lg and still are not doing. Meanwhile to be extraordinary. ting has had to stay on one side In a small theatre not far from the immensely popular, their apparent naivety it was now a question of survival. I National there is a production running with concealing the characteristically cunning ipleted the revision of Gone with the a strangely downbeat ending. The play is by ruses of the 'little Czech man' later made 1 (see Index on Censorship 5/1978) Bohumil Hrabal; rich in its colloquial famous by HaSek's good soldier Svejk was raided by the police, and these portraits of suburban Prague's post-war (HaSek himself was a cabaret performer). During the occupation 1939-45, the apters were stolen. I have since re- working class, it seems somehow unfinished. them, and have plans to come out Those fortunate to have been at the premiere small theatres again evaded close scrutiny by me with the Twilight in March next last March remember it otherwise; the using allegory and limiting the scale of their lis is not so much an autobiography closing image of a grotesque ogre ended the productions. For example, Jindfich Honzl's :lf as of the time and era when we reminiscences of an elderly worker, a sorter 'Little Theatre for 99' performed in a small Sophiatown and so on. It is also a of waste-paper made redundant by mechan- art gallery beneath a bookshop opposite the lg of the political movement of that isation. The story circulating in Prague says National Theatre. The 'literary evenings' he ilso have something like 600 and 700 that the committee from the ndrodni vybor presented avoided any appearance of being that I've written over the years; and (town council) who had passed the text for provocative; indeed, on one occasion lie were brave enough to publish a performance, demanded after seeing the German poetry was chosen, but from a )n of them, Azanian Love Song (see premiere that the ogre should be cut. 'It period of suppression and suffering. Pern Index on Censorship 1/1984) It was could be taken to represent the Soviet formances — which spectators remember as deal for the State not to have banned Union,' they claimed. 'But it doesn't being intensely dramatic, in spite of limited llection and to have banned this represent the Soviet Union,' protested the lighting and props — concentrated on >us poster, One Time Brother. But as theatre. 'That's clear from the context. The themes of nationalism and personal Gordimer said recently, it is because play is about something quite different.' responsibility. les it deals with are so topical and 'Possibly,' replied the council representaThe Czechoslovak nation has a mind : it has affected the thinking of many tives, 'but people might think that it sharply tuned to allegory, quick to pick up so much so that the low polls could represents the Soviet Union.' references and allusions. After the invasion buted in part to One Time Brother. The authorities could claim historical of 1968, the thousands filling the theatres >u know, we'd hoped very much that precedent for their unease. At the end of the reacted as one to lines even unintentionally lid have come to our Conference in nineteenth century Jaroslav Kvapil wrote an meaningful. Productions of LibuSe and in June 1984 ('They shoot writer's, allegory about the tragic fate of Princess other works of the 19th century national iey'), but I believe your application for PampeliSka, representing the Czech country, revival were hurriedly mounted, provoking ort was not successful. Do you think and the peasant hero Honza, representing debate amongst theatre workers and critics her people. On the stage of the National as to whether these works had a genuine th trying again? relevance, or whether they provided easy ik it's worth trying. It's one of those outlets for people's emotions — 'mere Barbara Day visited Prague regularly one of those problems that I never say, 'leave it and don't worry about between 1981 and 1984 to collect material for substitution', as Vaclav Havel claimed (in ink we must continuously knock and a dissertation on the small-stage tradition in the magazine Divadlo, January 1969). The the door of authority and the door of Czechoslovakia. Whilst studying the past, she period was marked by tremendous invenment in order to let our voices be felt; also discovered some areas of the contem- tion in making connections, in revealing new appeal against their banning of our porary theatre which are full of interest and meanings; on one level, the actor Vaclav Voska moved audiences with his reading of n«H K*» n tVir\rn in tVl^ir flpcVl • nYnprimpnt. Theatre on a string