A Magical 'Dream': The Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival 2005
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455563 , vital:75439 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48058
- Description: Mannville has always had a special relationship with this particular play, which inaugurated the theatre in St George's Park with Lesley French's 1972 production, and has been performed there on a number of occasions since. It is the archetypal Shakespearean show for outdoor theatre, and the PE Shakespearean Festival productions in a sense transport the delightful balmy (and sometimes barmy!) traditions established at the summertime open-air theatre in Regents Park, London, where Lesley French enjoyed so many triumphs--not least with this play--to Eastern Cape soil. Outdoor theatre has its risks, logistical and climatic, but when it comes off, as this show did, the result is vividly memorable.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455563 , vital:75439 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC48058
- Description: Mannville has always had a special relationship with this particular play, which inaugurated the theatre in St George's Park with Lesley French's 1972 production, and has been performed there on a number of occasions since. It is the archetypal Shakespearean show for outdoor theatre, and the PE Shakespearean Festival productions in a sense transport the delightful balmy (and sometimes barmy!) traditions established at the summertime open-air theatre in Regents Park, London, where Lesley French enjoyed so many triumphs--not least with this play--to Eastern Cape soil. Outdoor theatre has its risks, logistical and climatic, but when it comes off, as this show did, the result is vividly memorable.
- Full Text:
Book Review:‘These Traits Portend’: review of Thabo Mbeki and the Struggle for the Soul of the ANC by William Mervyn Gumede
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7049 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007391 , https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29807204_Book_Review_'These_Traits_Portend'_Review_of_Thabo_Mbeki_and_the_Struggle_for_the_Soul_of_the_ANC_by_William_Mervyn_Gumede_Cape_Town_Zebra_Press_2005
- Description: preprint , “The identity of the old ANC is changing fast and its soul is becoming harder to locate” – so writes William Gumede in his best-selling account of the Mbeki presidency. This is a thoroughly admirable book, critical, informed and deeply concerned with the welfare of the people of South Africa, especially the poor – with no taint of political hagiography. The central plank of the critique concerns the ANC’s management of the economy. Gumede’s account of the genesis of GEAR and the devious way it was sprung on the tri-partite alliance is illuminating. It was done under the rubric of necessary modernization, according to Gumede, and allegiance to the Blair/Schroeder Third Way. But there were huge ancillary consequences: the loss of influence by the ordinary ANC membership, neglect of branch activity, sidelining of the parliamentary caucus, centralization of policy development in the office of the president, increasing reliance on consultants and relentless cosying up to big business.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7049 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007391 , https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29807204_Book_Review_'These_Traits_Portend'_Review_of_Thabo_Mbeki_and_the_Struggle_for_the_Soul_of_the_ANC_by_William_Mervyn_Gumede_Cape_Town_Zebra_Press_2005
- Description: preprint , “The identity of the old ANC is changing fast and its soul is becoming harder to locate” – so writes William Gumede in his best-selling account of the Mbeki presidency. This is a thoroughly admirable book, critical, informed and deeply concerned with the welfare of the people of South Africa, especially the poor – with no taint of political hagiography. The central plank of the critique concerns the ANC’s management of the economy. Gumede’s account of the genesis of GEAR and the devious way it was sprung on the tri-partite alliance is illuminating. It was done under the rubric of necessary modernization, according to Gumede, and allegiance to the Blair/Schroeder Third Way. But there were huge ancillary consequences: the loss of influence by the ordinary ANC membership, neglect of branch activity, sidelining of the parliamentary caucus, centralization of policy development in the office of the president, increasing reliance on consultants and relentless cosying up to big business.
- Full Text:
Introduction [to the book "Thuthula: Heart of the Labyrinth" by Chris Zithulele Mann]
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:7057 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007419
- Description: There are certain stories, the world over, that stir our hearts and minds to imaginings richer and deeper than the bald facts of history can easily satisfy. Such is the legend of Thuthula, the young Xhosa girl whose beauty and grace won the heart of Ngqika, chief of the Rharhabe Xhosa; the woman who was later married to his uncle Ndlambe, and then taken by Ngqika to become his wife. The events took place in or around the years 1806 and 1807 in what is now the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Prior to the central episode treated in the play, legend has it that Thuthula was out collecting firewood one day with her friends when she knelt at a spring to drink. Startled by the sudden appearance of a hunting dog crossing the stream below the spring, she looked up and saw a handsome young hunter chasing behind the dog. She was struck by his charm and good looks. Teasingly, as any young girl might do, she called her friends round her and challenged the young man to choose his favourite from among them. Amid much flirting and laughter, the object of all this girlish attention was pushed into making a choice. Inevitably, given her beauty, his playful decision fell on Thuthula. This was the first meeting of Thuthula, daughter of Mthunzana, with Ngqika, son of Chief Mlawu.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:7057 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007419
- Description: There are certain stories, the world over, that stir our hearts and minds to imaginings richer and deeper than the bald facts of history can easily satisfy. Such is the legend of Thuthula, the young Xhosa girl whose beauty and grace won the heart of Ngqika, chief of the Rharhabe Xhosa; the woman who was later married to his uncle Ndlambe, and then taken by Ngqika to become his wife. The events took place in or around the years 1806 and 1807 in what is now the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Prior to the central episode treated in the play, legend has it that Thuthula was out collecting firewood one day with her friends when she knelt at a spring to drink. Startled by the sudden appearance of a hunting dog crossing the stream below the spring, she looked up and saw a handsome young hunter chasing behind the dog. She was struck by his charm and good looks. Teasingly, as any young girl might do, she called her friends round her and challenged the young man to choose his favourite from among them. Amid much flirting and laughter, the object of all this girlish attention was pushed into making a choice. Inevitably, given her beauty, his playful decision fell on Thuthula. This was the first meeting of Thuthula, daughter of Mthunzana, with Ngqika, son of Chief Mlawu.
- Full Text:
The relevance of (South African) Renaissance studies
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7055 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007416 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sisa/article/view/40550
- Description: preprint , This paper is part of a longer piece devoted to the elucidation of two related propositions. The first is that in South Africa the humanities in general, and Renaissance Studies in particular, are stymied by a lack of strategic thinking from those in the academy. The second is that the humanities, and Renaissance Studies, and Shakespeare, are valid and needed in this country, possibly as never before. This paper tackles the latter question, the challenge of intrinsic relevance. What possible bearing have art and literature, politics and religion, customs and technologies developed 10,000 kilometres away and nearly half a millennium ago to do with South Africa in the 21st century? I steal up on the main issue by outlining an abbreviated rhetoric of relevance, establishing a framework within which intrinsic relevance can be conceptualised for Renaissance Studies today.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7055 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007416 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sisa/article/view/40550
- Description: preprint , This paper is part of a longer piece devoted to the elucidation of two related propositions. The first is that in South Africa the humanities in general, and Renaissance Studies in particular, are stymied by a lack of strategic thinking from those in the academy. The second is that the humanities, and Renaissance Studies, and Shakespeare, are valid and needed in this country, possibly as never before. This paper tackles the latter question, the challenge of intrinsic relevance. What possible bearing have art and literature, politics and religion, customs and technologies developed 10,000 kilometres away and nearly half a millennium ago to do with South Africa in the 21st century? I steal up on the main issue by outlining an abbreviated rhetoric of relevance, establishing a framework within which intrinsic relevance can be conceptualised for Renaissance Studies today.
- Full Text:
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