Department of Drama

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Browsing Department of Drama by Author "Binge, Ludwig"

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    Television theatre : investigating the possibility of a translation of Afrikaans theatre to screen
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-04) Binge, Ludwig; Du Preez, Petrus; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Drama .
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South African theatre and especially Afrikaans theatre has become increasingly dependent on the annual arts festivals. These events only last for a week at a time and most productions are unable to make the move to a larger, more commercial urban venue, and are therefore unable to survive beyond the festival. In addition to being lost to future audiences, little attempt is made to keep record of these productions, which makes research surrounding festival productions very problematic. Television has the ability to make audio-visual records of events and to showcase them to a large audience. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of translating theatre to television for the purpose of expanding the potential audience of Afrikaans theatre productions, while simultaneously making audio-visual records of these events. After the possibilities had been examined, the study began to construct a proposed mode of operation for a season of Afrikaans theatre on television. International trends in the practice of translating theatre to screen were examined which included film and television adaptions of stage plays and live recordings of stage plays. The most significant initiative the study encountered was the NT Live (National Theatre Live) project that records live performance on the stages of the National Theatre, while simultaneously transmitting them live in high definition to cinemas across the globe. The study then shifted its focus to South Africa where it determined what had been done in the practice of translating theatre to screen in this country. The struggle to obtain sufficient and easily accessible information on local examples proved that there is an overall lack of theatre documentation and archiving in South Africa. It also found that South Africa did not have an equivalent to a project such as the NT Live. After discovering that there have been South African television endeavours that involved the recording of live performance, the study used the NT Live initiative as case study in constructing a South African model for television. While constructing a proposed mode of operation for a series of Afrikaans theatre on television, it was indicated how these recordings could serve as a documentation process and research resource for productions. Three possible models for translating theatre to television were constructed to better determine what the possibilities were in terms of the content and format of such a series.