RE: Dramatic Arts
Paper 1: Written. Question Paper
National Curriculum Statement
National Senior Certificate
2013
I was asked in my capacity as Internal Moderator for the subject Dramatic Arts to respond to the following question.
I will do my best in my response to address the obvious concern that the complaint reveals.
I hope to reassure the person that we deal responsibly with the young adults entrusted to us.
We are aware that by the time a learner is in Grade 12 they will have begun to be faced with the realities of adulthood, often beyond the security of their homes and the school system.
We hope to provide them with the skills and critical thinking to respond to what they encounter in their daily lives.
This is one of the profound benefits of the subject Dramatic Arts, that it allows young adults to confront real matters through the safety of story. (See below, Note 5. The kind of learner that is envisaged by the NCS)
The play and question the complaint refers to, for instance, gives them the opportunity to deal with and comment on the horror of child rape functionally, critically, creatively; a response that will empower them to restore health in society.
Dramatic Arts does deal with hard realities and issues of social transformation, social justice and human awareness.
The relevant question, to which I am responding, is 11.3.2: ‘Describe how you would get the actor portraying Simon to perform line 9 to maximize the horror of the rape for the audience.’
The question is from the play, Tshepang, written by Lara Foot formerly Director at the Market Theatre and currently CEO of the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town.
The play won several National and International awards.
This play and the extract was selected for a question, because it highlights and interrogates one of the most distressing brutalities of our current South African society.
The subject Dramatic Arts by its very nature responds to and reflects on all kinds of themes that affect our society and asks us to engage with these. It does this to raise consciousness of issues beyond the facts alone to emotional and imaginative levels that help us to perceive our humanity a little more fully.
Out of this is born opportunities for healing, for restoring respect, safety, dignity, freedom, rights or any other of the things we value in a democracy.
Dramatic Arts is therefore a contextual subject.
It operates within a given human context, which is never ideal, conflict free or entirely just.
The play, Tshepang, is a profound example. It is based on a real event, headlined by the media, that disturbed the nation.
The brutal and horrific rape of a baby is about as far as we can regress from desirable human behaviour. I
t is an act that shocks us so deeply that few of us, if it were not reported, would want to believe it possible.
And given the facts alone, we are free to imagine it was the act of something monstrous, inhuman.
When something like this happens, as it all too often does in our society, it points to something missing or broken in the fabric of the community in which it happens.
The playwright had the courage in this instance to investigate the predicament of all of those involved in this story – the tiny victim, her mother, the perpetrator and their environment– that led to this act that mangled the lives of all of them.
The terrible truth that emerges from the play is that the act was perpetrated by a recognisable human being and not a monster.
It is this essential truth that needs to be faced if we are to begin the journey of healing and of changing the circumstances that led to it.
“She (Lara Foot, the writer) employs refined, ironic humour to sketch a colourful portrait of the community.
Then, by turning everyday objects into symbols, investing them with emotional connotations, we experience the horror poetically.
The rape itself is enacted using a broomstick and a loaf of white bread.” Review
The complaint states: ‘there is a question that required pupils to describe in ‘much horror and detail’ the brutal rape of a nine-month old baby?’
This interpretation is incorrect; the actual question in the question paper asks for something different. It asks the candidate to ‘describe how you would help the actor portraying Simon to perform line 9 to maximize the horror of the rape for the audience.’
Line 9, to which the question refers, is a climactic moment in the play, in which the audience is faced with the Dramatic Arts concept of an action metaphor.
Instead of raping a baby or showing the rape or describing the rape, the symbols of a loaf of bread and a broom stick are used to represent and resemble the brutal act of the rape.
The horror and aversion the audience feels is achieved without resorting to an actual rape.
This is intended, and it is up to the director and the actor playing Simon, to work out the best way to achieve it theatrically and symbolically. This is also exactly what the question asks of the candidate, nothing more.
The candidate only has to explain how the symbol and metaphor of the stick and the bread can be used theatrically (the use of lighting, sound, stage, props etc.) to make an audience feel the horror of such a brutal act on such a vulnerable baby.
Nowhere is it expected of the candidate to have to literally describe the actual act of raping a nine-month-old baby.
Question 11 is valid and fair because the rape of babies is a relevant societal issue. In technical terms it is also asking the learner to present how, the horror of the act can be conveyed, theatrically, to an audience.
This is not to create hysteria, but to sensitise an audience to the horror and, at best, to have them walk out of the theatre determined to prevent such horrific and brutal acts from being perpetrated.
It is a valid question also because it asks candidates to deliberate on social transformation and justice, to integrate and apply competence and to consider human rights, environmental and social justice.
It finally requires from a candidate to respond within the framework of the subject Dramatic Arts, that is, theatrically; using symbols and metaphors to create a powerful emotional reality. This is consistent with them having to: identify and solve problems; make decisions using critical and creative thinking; collecting analysing, organising and critically evaluating information; communicating effectively using visual, symbolic and/or language skills in various modes demonstrating an understanding of the world as a set of related systems by recognising that problem solving contexts do not exist in isolation.
A subject such as the rape of a 9 month old baby, is not new to a Dramatic Arts candidate in Grade 12. They will through media and cinema have been exposed to many horrific images and reports of, for instance, murder, xenophobia and rape. What is perhaps new is that through the subject Dramatic Arts they get to engage with it and comment on it in a critical, creative and theatrical manner.
The discussed question for instance tested two main elements:
1. Learners awareness of the brutality of the rape of a baby
2. If learners can theatrically and metaphorically portray that awareness for the audience.
These two elements represent the abilities of candidates to empathise, to analyze and to express creatively. These are important skills for those who are poised to become the leaders of the future.
In conclusion, I have asked learners from Desmond Tutu Secondary(Mbekweni, Paarl) to give me their honest opinion of the question.
Herewith their response, via the educator:
Although it seemed a very harsh scene in the play, my learners did not find anything shocking or out of the ordinary about the subject matter.
It is, as they said some harsh realities that they have to deal with every day and something they fully could identify with.
They also agree that theatre is supposed to develop consciousness about the world around you and then show it creatively on stage.
They say that they’ve seen worst things on the TV these days.
This horror situation is familiar and part of their everyday reality, which they have to cope with.’
I have done my best to answer the complaint. I hope that I have reassured the person that the inclusion of the question was not irresponsible or careless.
Education department responds to complaints: https://www.citizen.co.za/springs-advertiser/?p=82396
