The Hungry Earth was first performed with a cast of five at the Donaldson Orlando Community Centre (DOCC), Soweto in May 1979 and then at the Box Theatre of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. With the cast down to three – Maishe Maponya, Dijo Tjabane and Sydwell Yola – it toured Britain professionally from May to August 1981 and then went to Switzerland and West Germany, before returning to its first commercial engagement in South Africa in the Laager at The Market Theatre from January 1982.

This, the complete and final script, was first published in South Africa Plays edited by Stephen Gray and published in London by Nick Hern Books and in South Africa by Heinemann-Centaur.

As the house lights fade to blackout, the actors take position and sing:

As the song ends, the lights come up for:

The Prologue

ALL: We are about to take you on a heroic voyage of the Bahumutsi Drama Group.

ONE: It seems as though some people are without feeling.

TWO: If we would really feel, the pain would be so great that we would stand up and fight to stop all the suffering.

THREE: If we could really feel it in the bowels, the groin, in the throat and in the breast, we would go into the streets and stop the wars, stop slavery, destroy the prisons, stop detentions, stop the killings, stop selfishness – and apartheid we would end.

FOUR: Ah, we would all learn what love is.

FIVE: We would learn what sharing is.

ONE: And, of course, we would live together.

ALL [singing]: Touched by our non-violent vibrations.

ONE: We will rise up.

ALL [singing]: We will sing while we crawl to the mine.

TWO: We will rise up.

ALL [singing]: Bleeding through the days of poverty.

THREE: We will fight hard.

ALL [singing]: Pulsing in the hot dark ground

FOUR: We will rise up.

ALL [singing]: Dying in the stubborn hungry earth. [Speaking] We will fight hard.