Return of the Ancestors rattles feathers

The University of Free State hosted the G20 Summit's Working Group on Research and Innovation in the week of 24 May.  They requested the Drama Department to stage something to entertain the guests, and Prof Anthea van Jaarsveld, head of the Dept, offered the organisers my satirical two-hander, Return of the Ancestors as it featured two of their staff, and as students had just returned to campus so that they were unable to rehearse or prepare anything new.   After the play started, government officials saw how critical the play was of the ANC regime and requested that it be stopped.  However, it proceeded to the end, after which the government official sought to 'contextualise' the piece by lauding the progress that had been made since 1994.  The international and local guests were not fooled though, and the actors received much affirmation from the audience after the performance.  The government official would have been congratulated too for showing off our great democracy if he had simply let the play happen and did not seek to undermine it.  But then, he did.