South African drama and theatre heritage (part 1): a map of where we find ourselves

Abstract

The inaccessibility of documents on South African theatre productions poses a considerable problem in both the research and teaching of theatre. The gap that this has created in our literary history may be irreversible as live performance is the most ephemeral of art forms. The recording of theatre performance inevitably implies a distortion of the original event, but is nevertheless of vital importance for theatre research. This article first explicates the importance of, and controversy around, theatre archiving and then maps the history and surveys the current status of South African theatre archiving, and finds that we face three related problems in this regard. Firstly, the Centre for Information on the Arts (SACIA) collection, which functioned as a clearing house for the performing arts from 1971 to the late 1980s, might become inaccessible in the National Archives, where it is now held. Secondly, there is no easily accessible documentation on South African theatre between the late 1980s and the recent present and, thirdly, we do not have a system in place to document theatre currently performed – especially those performances presented at arts festivals by ad hoc companies. This article concludes with an appeal to theatre academics and practitioners to take action in order to preserve our theatre heritage.