Against the Tide

The four plays that make up this collection Thabo Mbeki and Other Nightmares by Tsepo wa-Mamatu; Circles by Tau Maserumule; Comrade Babble by Allan Kolski Horwitz; My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Lesego Rampolokeng/Liepollo Rantekoa, Stacy Hardy and Jaco Bouwer; The Life and Times of Brett Kebble by Patrick Bond, have, as a linking thread, their confrontation with the ongoing corruption and mismanagement that characterizes the not-so-new liberated South Africa. Stylistically quite different, each breaks new ground in presenting these debilitating features and while tackling political themes head-on, never degenerates into mere sloganeering or counter-propaganda. Indeed, they take contemporary South African playwriting to new heights of ‘committed theatre’.