Creative outlets

During the mid-twentieth century years, theatre for white English-speaking South Africans consisted almost entirely of local (or sometimes imported) versions of plays being performed in England or America.

The National Theatre, formed in 1947, did not allow for black creative participation and, although it performed some indigenous Afrikaans plays, only about five of more than forty plays performed in English were by South Africans. One of the few was Guy Butler, whose The Dam and The Dove Returns entered the company's repertoire in the 1950s.

As the apartheid system assumed its stranglehold on South Africa in the 1950s, some of South Africa's major writers, among them Lewis Nkosi, Nat Nakasa, and Bloke Modisane, all names integrally entwined with that of Sophiatown, were barred from white theatres and entertainment and their potential contribution to South African theatre was lost.

However, there were some attempts to provide outlets for emerging black talent. In the early 1950s, Ian Bernhardt, a member of an amateur white dramatic society, formed an all-black drama group called the Bareti Players, which drew on the tradition of theatre based on European models.

He was also one of the founders of the Union of South African Artists, whose original aim was to protect black artists from exploitation. Union Artists also organised, in the early 1960s, the African Music and Drama Association, which met at Dorkay House, a dilapidated building on the fringes of Johannesburg's central business district which, for a decade would be a cradle of creativity.

Bernhardt also promoted the Township Jazz concerts that culminated in the production of King Kong.

Towards the end of the 1950s, a young Port Elizabeth playwright named Athol Fugard made his first impression on the Johannesburg stage with a play entitled No-Good Friday. It was created with a number of black intellectuals from Sophiatown, most of them members of Union Artists, and opened in 1958 at the Bantu Men's Social Centre, adjacent to Dorkay House.

In 1959, King Kong, a musical promoted by Union Artists, opened at the Witwatersrand University Great Hall in 1959 to multi-racial audiences. It was a sensation which, during a season in London, launched stars like Miriam Makeba and Todd Matshikiza into the international spotlight.

Sponono, another musical using black actors, the result of collaboration between Alan Paton and Krishnah Shah, and also promoted by Union Artists, opened in 1961.