Armed response. Bush tale / Martin Koboekae.

London, England : Seagull Books London, 2009.

1 online resource (pages 59-84)

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"Bush Tale by Martin Koboekae (premiered in 2006) has a subtle, gentle, and humorous style. The play poignantly depicts the mistrust prevalent when two people from extremely different cultural backgrounds meet by chance in a deeply rural part of South Africa. A white woman from a conservative background encounters a witty black man from a politicized one. She is trying to get away from her husband who is on holiday at a nudist colony. The black man is on his way to the mill where he works, and pushes a rickety wheelbarrow laden with bags of corn. As the play evolves, the strange, isolated space of their meeting becomes a poetic image which lifts it out of naturalism. With much trepidation and distrust, they interact with each other. One can sense extremely subtle glimpses of the influence of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The characters try to confront their own personal and cultural memory of white privilege and black trauma as they attempt to discover the meaning of Otherness. This is done through a theatricalizing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's focus on revelations of 'truth.' The Commission had the aim of 'humanizing' the sense of Otherness which was enforced by apartheid ideology. The play is not in any way a literal version of the Commission's approach or content but operates on the metaphysical level of 'revealing truth' through a gentle encounter of two characters. But, deeper than this, one sees the play as a delicate and thoughtful moment in time during which these characters try, with great trepidation, wariness, humor, and curiosity to engage with prejudice, stereotype, history, and cultural memory."--Introduction.

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March 28, 2022