Examining Performability of the Northern Sotho drama: H.D. Bopape’s Makgale

Abstract

H.D Bopape has significantly contributed towards the Northern Sotho literature. He is having notable detective novel entitled “Lenong La Gauta”, collection of short stories “Bogobe Bja Tswiitswii” and dramatic text “Makgale” under his name among others. We maintain that he has contributed much because he has written both three genres, except for poetry. This article examined his dramatic text Makgale (1978) with the objective of placing its performance potentiality. Although most of the theorists are agreeing that drama genre was originally meant to be performed, it seems majority of the African playwrights, including those of Northern Sotho in our case, write this genre for reading. This view is clearly proven by their (Northern Sotho playwrights in particular) application of dramatic elements such as Time, Space, Characterization, Dialogue, Language Use and Stage Directives in their scripts. For instance, the referenced Makgale is a long-paged text, with its characters applying long conversations and terminologies which they may in turn obstruct its potentiality of being staged. Moreover, the playwright makes use of other obstacles such as weapons, appearance of graves, the moving of trains and others, which theorists are against. Due to the nature of the study, only qualitative methodology was employed to allow the examination of the context of the text.