HALF ART
CHRIS THURMAN: Much ado about everything in play’s hall of mirrors
’Myer Taub’s DCoriolanus — the most richly resonant of Shakespeare’s works in contemporary SA — is a deliberate fragmentation and reconstitution of the play’
It has been, I can say without fear of contradiction, a big political news week — even by South African standards. President Jacob Zuma’s semi-mysterious, semi-transparent manoeuvrings in the Pravin Gordhan saga. The death and funeral of Ahmed Kathrada. Alongside this (an unwelcome distraction, if ever there was one) the parallel universe of the Western Cape legislature issued the apparently cureless hangover that is Helen Zille talking about colonialism. A different tone was set for my news week by a front-page story in Monday’s Business Day about the prospect of Shakespeare disappearing from the country’s high school curricula. This is not really news. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has spoken in only the broadest terms about reforms that might include the removal of Shakespeare from the list of English set works. And for a few years now, there have been some pupils who complete their schooling without "doing" Shakespeare.Compared to the actual news, it is not so much a ...
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