A case for the comparative study of the dramatisation of socio-political transition in South African theatre and Iranian cinematography

Abstract

The project makes a case for identifying synergies between creative responses to the experiences of socio-political transition as dramatised and refracted in the work of South African playwrights and Iranian cinematographers. The intention is not to offer a survey or linear periodisation of major works and auteurs. Instead, the aim is to explore how an intertextual comparison between specific South African and Iranian texts can offer additional perspectives by reading them in tandem, and in relation to their respective transitional contexts. In addition to distinguishing thematic reciprocities, it is argued that examining the contrasting aesthetic modes employed in each case invites speculation about localised limits and possibilities of imaginative responses to living in transition. The works identified fall into three broad sections, namely, works from the pre-apartheid and pre-revolutionary era in Iran (Dhlomo's The Girl Who Killed to Save and Mehrjui's The Cow). These works are compared with later iterations (Bailey's The Prophet, and Makhmalbaf's Once Upon a Time, Cinema). This is followed by works produced during the repressive apartheid era, and in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war. Fugard's The Blood Knot, and Mehrjui's Hamoun are compared to Mda's We Shall Sing For the Fatherland and Hatamikia's The Glass Agency. The final section examines ‘post-transitional’ works produced after the 1994 South African election, and the period leading up to and following the landmark 2009 election in Iran. Kani's Nothing but the Truth and Dike's The Return are read in relation to Dehnamaki’s propagandistic Outcasts2 which is contrasted to Beyzaie's When We Are All Asleep. The last chapter looks at works produced in the current decade, and focuses on the way What Remains by Davids and A Dragon Arrives! by Haghighi embrace notions of temporal flux and aesthetic experimentation. It is argued that they do so as a critical lens for reflecting on the potentialities of the transitional continuum between past, present and future in the contemporary moment.