Against The Tide

Three plays, a libretto and an essay
edited by Allan Kolski Horwitz

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’.