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Migration Theatre in South Africa With Reference to Mike van Graan’s When Swallows Cry

Summary In this article a discussion on migrant theatre in South Africa is given, with special reference to Mike van Graan’s play When Swallows Cry (2017). In the introduction a short background is given in terms of migration statistics and issues (notably xenophobia) pertaining to the South African state and society. Against the background of an international and national upsurge in migrant theatre the view is expressed that though we have had migrant theatre pre-1994 during the heyday of Nationalist apartheid ideology, a change has occurred since 1994 when the political dispensation changed in South Africa and the African National Congress (ANC) came into power. The situation today is more complex where intra-continental and cross-continental migrancy is now part of everyone’s lives, as portrayed in Mike van Graan’s When Swallows Cry. Van Graan’s play thus reflects a changing focus in migrant plays in South Africa: from the very early plays concerned with internal migration in the country to plays that today reflect a more complex world (i.e. the often violent and xenophobic experiences of African migrants – also within a so-called new South Africa, but also in the rest of Africa and the bigger world).