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      Photograph: The playwright Athol Fugard with the characters Thami, Isabel and Mr M on the set of the stage production of My Children! My Africa!. (Credit: Ruphin Coudyzer)

      Fill in the blanks below, using your own words wherever possible. The first question relates to the first paragraph (p. 4); the following five questions deal in turn with each of the bullets under “Why study this play today?”.

      1. ____________________________ declared a State of Emergency in ____________________________ in order to counter ____________________________ declared by black South Africans. (3)

      2.The two ways of opposing an unjust social system like apartheid that this play examines are to ____________________________ and to ____________________________. (2)

      3.Studying this play will help ____________________________ to understand how South Africa came to be ____________________________. (2)

      4.Three reasons for reading this play are that it is ____________________________, it was written by ____________________________ and it ____________________________. (3)

      5.The two-word phrase from the fourth bullet that best expresses the advantage of reading a drama such as this one is ____________________________. (1)

      About Athol Fugard (p. 5)

      1.List three facts from the second paragraph that suggest that Athol Fugard was unconventional.

      •____________________________

      •____________________________

      •____________________________

      (6)

      2.Fugard wrote the works listed in this section in the following order: Sizwe Banzi is Dead (1972), Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act (1972), Tsotsi (1980) and My Children! My Africa! (1989). Tsotsi differs from the other works listed here in that it was originally written as ____________________________ and was later made into ____________________________. (2)

      3.In addition to the three listed here, Fugard also wrote thirty other _________________________________. (1)

      (Note: Jerusalema, mentioned in paragraph four in this section, was not written by Fugard, but is a film produced in 2008 by writer/director Ralph Ziman.)

      4.We are not told directly why Fugard moved to America in the eighties, but we can assume that it . (2)

      What is a drama? (p. 6)

      1.Underline any words or phrases in this Merriam-Webster definition of drama that are not included in the definition of drama at the top of p. 6:

      “A piece of writing that __________________________________ and is performed _____________________________.” (2)

      2.On the other hand, the p. 6 definition mentions __________________________________, which is not included in the Merriam-Webster definition. (1)

      3.Here are key features of a drama to add to the notes on drama in your copy of the play:

      3.1Literature appears in different genres: prose (novels and short stories), poetry and drama (plays). Drama differs from the others in that living actors in costume tell the story by performing it on a stage for an audience.

      3.2For this reason the layout of a written play separates the words the actors speak (the primary text) from the information they or their director might need. Below the title you find the list of characters (the dramatis personae). Their names in bold down the left-hand column indicate who speaks the words opposite.

      3.3The playwright hopes to make sure that performances agree with how he or she pictures them and so he or she will add guidelines for

      •the setting

      •costumes

      •lighting

      •sound (music or noises),

      and will include stage directions in italics, usually in brackets, that tell the actors

      •when to appear on stage or leave [enter/exit],

      •how they are feeling

      •how to say their lines, and

      •how the scene moves ahead.

      The drama script (p. 6)

      1.Distinguish between dialogue and stage directions by underlining the stage directions in this extract from p. 44 of your copy of the play:

      All those in favour raise a hand. [Mr M, Thami and Isabel count hands] Seventeen? [Thami and Isabel nod agreement] All those against? [They all count again] Twenty-four? [Reactions from Thami and Isabel] The proposal is defeated by twenty-four votes to seventeen. (4)

      2.The following terms are defined on p. 6 of your copy of the play: Setting, Plot, Conflict, Climax and Character. Write each of them next to the paraphrase that corresponds to it in the table below:

      (5)

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