Abstract This essay looks at how four contemporary South African plays use performance to render, address, and acknowledge personal and national trauma. By staging acts of cruelty that happen as “ordinary” experience, as perpetual pain, or as representation of life-in-crisis, these plays not only question and complement the national narrative by telling stories that have not found a stage or a listener before, but they also inform and speak to topical societal issues in South Africa such as that of apathy to violence and the question of complicity. Yael Farber and Lara Foot employ a distinctly South African theatre language that draws on theatrical concepts of the European avant-garde, especially those of Antonin Artaud, as well as on the tradition of oral storytelling and ritual to render cruelty as the “ordinary” and crisis as an ongoing condition in the sociohistorical context of apartheid and the apartheid-influenced post-1994 world. By excavating, tracing, and acknowledging “ordinary” cruelty as experienced personally and collectively, the plays explore revelations about the human condition, open up a discussion on the nature of memory or (collective) amnesia, on trauma, complicity, and the crucial role of the witness.

中文翻译：

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南非四部戏剧中的“普通”残酷与戏剧见证

摘要 本文着眼于四个当代南非戏剧如何使用表演来渲染、处理和承认个人和国家的创伤。通过上演作为“普通”经历、永久痛苦或危机生活表现的残酷行为，这些戏剧不仅通过讲述以前没有舞台或听众的故事来质疑和补充民族叙事，但他们也告知和谈论南非的热门社会问题，例如对暴力的冷漠和同谋问题。Yael Farber 和 Lara Foot 采用了一种独特的南非戏剧语言，借鉴了欧洲前卫的戏剧概念，尤其是 Antonin Artaud 的戏剧概念，以及在种族隔离的社会历史背景和 1994 年后受种族隔离影响的世界中，口头讲故事和仪式的传统将残忍视为“常态”，将危机视为持续存在的条件。通过挖掘、追踪和承认个人和集体经历的“普通”残忍，这些戏剧探索了人类状况的启示，开启了关于记忆或（集体）失忆的本质、创伤、共谋和关键作用的讨论证人的。