Themes

Question 1

What does the play address?

Answer 1

• oppression
• labour
• survival
• separation of families between SA homelands and the cities
• poverty and homelessness
• police brutality
• political imprisonment

Question 2

What are the key themes addressed in the play?

Answer 2

1. Resisting oppression with religious faith
2. To what extent freedom is a fantasy
3. Need for South African black leadership

Question 3

What undertones does the theme of resisting oppression with religious faith take on and why?

Answer 3

• ironic undertones
• because in a society where there is such institutionalised racism and systemic oppression, it seems hypocritical that the Afrikaaner government is a self-proclaimed Christian nation
• thus the metaphor of the Saviour’s return is complex and appropriate for the type of satire that the playmakers craeted for the stage

Question 4

Why is fantasizing a biblical prophecy in South Africa ironic?

Answer 4

• because all Morena’s miracles relate to the mundane yet politicized struggles of South Africans

Question 5

How does the play challenge people’s definitions of fantasy?

Answer 5

• by testing the apartheid government’s commitment to Christianity and their anticipation and treatment of a black saviour

Question 6

What is an example in the play of a blow to the Christian morality that Afrikaners claim to have?

Answer 6

• in scene 18
• when Morena is betrayed and caught
• Morena, like Jesus at the crucifixion, prays:
• “Forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”
• but his follower insists, “They know! They know!”

Question 7

What is the answer to the question that the play poses in terms of to what extent freedom is a fantasy?

Answer 7

• freedom is not a fantasy because the Bible and the Saviour have promised that it is possible for justice to reign on earth just as it does in heaven

Question 8

Why are the prisoners at Robben Island perplexed that they, as prisoners, were given Bibles?

Answer 8

• since the New Testament emphasises freedom through a belief in the Saviour

Question 9

What does the second coming of Christ, portrayed by the black Morena do?

Answer 9

• internationalises the apartheid struggle as a globally noteworthy situation

Question 10

What is the irony of the international media in the play?

Answer 10

• they are willing to cover Jesus’ return
• but do not mobilise to demonstrate apartheid’s atrocities to the world

Question 11

What does the media’s behaviour in the play do?

Answer 11

• this discrepancy indicts the international world for not helping South Africans gain freedom from apartheid

Question 12

At the time the play was written, what was the state of most black leaders?

Answer 12

• they were either imprisoned or deceased

Question 13

How do the playwright’s refer to Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment on Robben Island?

Answer 13

• he is only mentioned through the text as “the agitator imprisoned on the island”

Question 14

What is Morena’s resurrection of black leaders symbolic of?

Answer 14

• it is a symbolic resurrection that becomes a call for new leaders to forge their way into the political struggle against apartheid in the tradition of these fallen heroes