Professor David Peimer
Dark Humour in the South African Theatre of Reza de Wet and Athol Fugard
Summary
Athol Fugard and Reza de Wet are two of the most renowned South African playwrights. With dark humour and irony, their work exposes the heart of prejudice and hate. In this talk, David Peimer asks, how do these writers help us understand our world today?
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
That’s a brilliant question. I got to check it actually. I don’t think there really is in terms of anything like it was. I’m sure there is the hate speech, free speech, what’s allowed, what isn’t. I’m not a legal expert, so I’d need to check that before getting back to you, Ron. In terms of legality and in terms of social mores, I’m not quite up to date with that at the moment in terms of that kind of censorship, which is more social, not necessarily strictly legal. Great point.