Die vergestalting van tyd in die Afrikaanse en Nederlandse drama na sestig / Martha H.S. Britz

• Main Author: Britz, Martha H.S.
• Language: other
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10394/14689

It was suggested at the start of this experimental survey that time is of integral importance as a structural element of drama and that it is a dynamic element which has changed rapidly throughout the ages. The survey showed that this hypothesis could be proven by means of facts. In the course of chapter one it was indicated how drama, with regard to the handling of time, developed from the classical tragedy with its linear of chronological expression of time up to a complicated structure of time. A dramatically distinguishing trait of the drama is that everything in the events after being accomplished stretches towards the future. According to Emil Staiger 's Grundbegriffe der Poetik (1972) he distinguishes between lyrics, epics and dramatics because the dramatic distinguishes itself as an impulse towards the future. In the framework of time of the New Drama and especially in the drama after the sixties, the primary factor is not that which is to come seeing that time cannot be divided from scope anymore. Time is present visually in the stage framework where different times exist alongside each other. The first step used to work against the futuristic nature of the traditional drama came from the Naturalists who stressed the past extensively. Natural ism wanted to provide the present with psychological motivation for deeds which aimed towards the past with a clinical and scientific attitude. This view was maintained by various twentieth century dramatists such as Miller, Tennessee Williams and Ionesco where the influence of the past is clearly notable in the present. The incident in the past i s used to explain the present as it is illustrated in Tennessee Williams's drama The glass menagerie (1945). The third step in the survey about the structure of time was to replay the past as part of the dramatic present. In these dramas, where the emphasis is shifted towards a number of situations which are placed next to each other, the aim is not primarily progressive anymore , but is the exploitation of the here and now in a spatially presented present. The performance now develops chronologically and there is no question of a linear advancement as i s the case in Our town(1938) by Thornton Wilder. The fourth phase in the development of the structure of time is that the inseparability time is of integral importance where the complicated experience of all the elements of time in the present overlap. In these dramas the important factor is not primarily the past as a force in its own right anymore, seeing that there can be moved mutually in time, as is the case in Pinter's Old times (1972). The shift of emphasis with regard to the initiation of time in drama after the sixties and the elevation of chronology lead towards a circular movement in time. Cyclical time is embodied in drama by a concluding scene which is identical to the beginning of the drama so that it is not a continuation in time anymore, but rather a circular movement in time. By using such a movement in situations which are completed over and over again, time attains ritualistic meaning which leads it to rise above the necessarily passing time. The architect and the emperor (196 7) by Arrabal consists of a sequence of ritualistic situations of which the conclusion connects directly with the beginning. The use of mythological and religious motives tie in with the use of cyclical •time and thus i t i s endeavoured to provide time with "eternal value", and to stress its universal nature. Archetypes are used to provide the events with more substance and to rise above the timely . Claus does it in Vrijdag (1977 ) with Christiane and Lili. In the fourth phase of the development of the conception of time the flash makes its appearance which enables the dramatist, by means of flashback and advance flash, place the dramatic present i n the correct perspective. In the Theatre of the "Absurd" time is elevated so as to form the theme of certain dramas as in Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953) in which the two beggars endlessly wait for Godot' s arrival. Everything i n the drama centres around time because one is intensely aware of the passing of time when you wait. In Ionesco' s drama The bald soprano (1 948 ) there is not any advance i n time because a disturbance takes place in the time . The latter is indeterminable and nothing can be trusted upon because the watches show exactly the opposite of the correct time and, at one stage, the watch even chimes seventeen times when it is nine o' clock. Time therefore becomes a lasting unreliable idea. Multi surfaced scope in presenting drama and understudying of characters make time shifts easier. This technique heightens the complexity of the time structure of the drama and is aimed at making competent shifts in time easier to visualize. From the survey it appears that the characters in the dramas do not only experience time objectively but also subjectively. In this way scope, characterization, events and the discourse are not to be separated from time - it is part of the entirety of the drama. To prove how the structure of time in drama changed after the sixties, four subgenres of the drama are examined and aspects of the handling of time during this period is stressed. In the experimental drama Kanna hy ko hystoe (1965) by Adam Small, events are recalled in Kanna 's memory. This drama is thus an example of subjectified time scope because the events which take place on the s t age are as Kanna remembers them. Kanna is the main character in these events which have already taken place when the drama starts, and here there is thus a question of the present and past which do not only inter mingle but which also exist simultaneously. In Claus's drama Vrijdag (1977) which is discussed as contemporary Dutch drama, the past and present exist simultaneously spatially on the stage. It occurs , however, by means of auditory and visual flashes from the past which occurred while serving a prison sentence. Thus has a definite effect on the present events. By using the flashback technique, as in the case of Vrijdag, it is possible to move backward and forward in time and the drama can be coloured visually. This makes the time shifts manageable with ease and the events are easily stage able. By means of this technique the difficulties experienced by the stage drama are eliminated because the drama reaches its conclusion only when i t is presented to an audience. The radio drama h Stasi e in die niet (1970) by Chris Barnard is analysed because the past, present and future are intermingled. The time shifts caused by the back flashes, intensify the time structure seeing that the radio drama is not bound to visual presentation. Here complete freedom within the movement of time exists . From the analysis of ‘n Stasie in die niet it appears that the technical possibilities of the auditory to express time, are virtually endless. With a video drama such as Piet-my-vrou (1982) by Chris Barnard the time shifts can be managed relatively easily and successfully by means of film cuts. In the latter the video drama are simultaneous whole acting components which represent segments in time. In Piet-my vrou the court case takes place in the present. From the present there is a continuous backward movement towards four different stages in the past. The purpose of this alternation between past and present is to rectify the faulty evidence in the present and to place it in the correct perspective. In this video drama, the form without dialogue is satisfactory evidence to attain the corrective. It has been endeavoured, in this survey, to point out, in a linear responsible way, the time structure in the Afrikaans and Dutch drama after the sixties. The changing time structure is an integral character trait of the renewal which took place in the drama after the sixties where chronology is not questioned any longer, but where the past, present and future can exist spatially. === Proefskrif (DLitt)--PU vir CHO, 1984