Beyond vice

‘Beyond Vice’ is the working title of a production at Uppsala stadsteater in Sweden. The production is based on a performance-based research project led by Johansson (at the time Guest Professor at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts) and Gay Morris, University of Cape Town. The research project was supported by The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Education (STINT) and the production is sponsored by The Swedish Arts Council. The performance-based research project explored the themes of male privilege, moral codes and gender abuse in 19th century Sweden and 21st century South Africa respectively. At these points in time South Africa and Sweden battled similar levels of poverty, epidemics (AIDS and syphilis respectively) driven by cognate social causes, and gender predicaments in terms of arranged marriages, domestic violence and prostitution. The underpinning research question concerned the comparability of gender problems between the countries given similar levels of poverty and cognate kinds of civil and epidemic predicaments. To test this we worked with one material (a 19th century Swedish debate and topical public opinion in South Africa) and applied it to one devising team in each country, one playwright from each country, apart from interdisciplinary participants in each country. This crystallised several scenes with diachronical mirroring effects between the countries which will be developed in the coming production