by Ronnie Jay

Created on: July 07, 2011

In as much as anthropological research has identified South Africa as the most likely candidate for the title of “Cradle of Mankind,” it may be surmised with a fair degree of certainty that it is here that the first seeds were planted that would take root and flourish through some two million years, eventually to culminate in the magnificent theatres that today provide venues for the staging of the masterpieces of Shakespeare, Goethe, Verdi, Lloyd Webber et al. For, simply stated, it is in the nature of man to entertain and be entertained. And so it would have been in the beginning, when a San hunter would regale his clanspeople seated around the cooking fire with an heroic enactment of his stalking and ultimate dispatch of the antelope upon whose flesh they now were feasting.

In the modern sense, however, theatre in South Africa is a newcomer on the global stage. Western civilization only arrived in this part of the continent in April 1652. But the earliest Dutch settlers were brought to these shores exclusively to establish a vegetable garden at the foot of Table Mountain, to provide a victualling service to passing ships plying the spice trade between Holland and the East. Fulfilment of this objective was paramount: it was never the intention of the masters back in Europe to lay down the foundations for a new country, much less one noted for its Thespian activity. But, a foothold having been gained, the fledgling settlement grew and spread into the hinterland. Life was hard, though, and every waking moment would have been dedicated to the business of survival; so one cannot imagine that, however much latent talent might have lain dormant in the occasional breast, any thought would have been given to such inconsequential matters as the performing arts.

Thus it was not until the 1830s, in the wake of the arrival in 1820 of a large group of British settlers, that stage productions were first presented in what was still known as the Cape Colony, specifically in the small settlers' town of Grahamstown. In this far-flung dot on the landscape of the British Empire the Grahamstown Amateur Company was founded to provide cultural entertainment for the citizens. So it might be stated with a fair amount of confidence that South African theatre has its origin in the staging, in 1838, of Kaatje Kekkelbek or Life among the Hottentots, by Andrew Geddes Bains.

Contemporaneous with this event, a veritable fleet of ox-drawn wagons was moving deeper into the hitherto

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