Abstract
D.Litt. et Phil. (English)
Although children's theatre has been recognised internationally as an important twentieth-century movement, in South Africa it has tended to be an activity with little prestige, few dedicated artists, and a limited core of dramatic texts that has largely been overlooked by literary scholars. The neglect in this country of children's theatre, a formal category of legitimate theatre, and the lack of investigation of its literature, provide the motivation for this thesis. The documentation of a chronology of productions that have been presented in English in South Africa from the earliest recorded performances to the present time, established in Appendix A, suggests the shape of this study and reveals the existence of a nucleus of children's playscripts. Commentary on, and analysis of, a selected number of these illuminates the genre and its development in South Africa. The Introduction to the work describes a methodology of empirical research. It works towards a broad definition of the concept children's theatre - by examining factors that gave rise to its establishment as a world-wide phenomenon; by establishing the relationship between children's theatre and the development of the child; by placing it in the wider context of theatre generally, and drama for children specifically; and by analysing accounts of three representative productions - one from the United States, the second from Britain and the third an indigenous South African play. Parameters are drawn and set to indicate the extent of the study and the layout of the chapters. Chapter One establishes a pattern from brief outlines of the development of children's theatre in Britain and the United States. In the scheme of the work as a whole, this chapter serves as a point of reference against which the development of South African children's theatre and <its literature can be measured and evaluated. Chapter Two isolates theatrical channels of entertainment and information for children in Victorian times, prior to the term 'children's theatre' first being used. These were not necessarily actual theatre presentations, but can be termed 'amusements' with special attraction for the youth of the community particularly. The marvels exhibited range from flea circuses to elaborate mechanical extravaganzas. Within the framework of analysing specific key texts and determining the markers of a history of children's theatre in South Africa, the purpose of Chapter Three is to document the contributions made by individuals and organisations to the development of children's theatre and its literature in South Africa; to trace the rise and growth of certain identified categories of plays at particular points in the history of children's theatre; and to follow the development in procedures and approaches to productions in an attempt to periodize them into a literary-historical overview.