This study is an investigation into the representation of complexities confronting the concept of the Rainbow Nation as a South African social reality. The study is based on the works of Trevor Noah, one of post-Apartheid South Africa‘s eminent stand-up comedians whose two media works, The Day Walker and Crazy Normal, tackle issues pertaining to the socio-political and economic realities that are prevailing in South Africa. The mass media products continue to receive wide acclaim from both, media circles and audiences from racially diversified societies. They are delivered in a mimetic stereotypical manner that cuts across the length and breadth of the South African society. Trevor Noah‘s comedy uses humour to provide the South African society with an opportunity ―[for brutal honesty] to explore, affirm, deny, and ultimately to change its structure and its values‖ (Turner, 1977:33). Representations made in his comedy, more than providing people with a tonic for laughter, also create for the society momentary instances of thought which transcend the theatre stage in which the humour is delivered. Courtesy of these representations, his comedy infiltrates the people‘s sub-consciousness and engages them on those issues pertaining to race-relations and multicultural tolerance which are more often than not trivialised but are influential in shaping the status quo.

This written explication deals with the integration of the forms of stand-up comedy and domestic comedy in order to create a comic text. The comic text explores issues regarding the presentation and representation of Jewish cultural identity. The integration results in both the experienced and imagined truths of the playwright to become present on stage. These were points of enquiry in the writing, directing and performing of DRIVEN: A COMEDY IN 70 MINUTES, which opened at The Intimate Theatre, Orange Street, Cape Town on the 23 November 2004. The Introduction deals with defining key terms and forms to be used and discussed in the thesis, informing the reader of the writer's purpose in creating comic text by integrating stand-up and domestic comedy. In the first chapter the generating of comic text is explored. The generating of comic text is achieved by using the comic persona. The comic persona is developed using identity, outside voice. Once the comic persona is in place it is possible to: create an authentic stage persona for the stand-up comedian and to create a 'theatrical climate' consisting of plot, characters, themes and narrative storylines. In the second chapter the idea of pastiche (borrowed elements) is explored in terms of its impact structurally and stylistically in the writing, directing and performing of DRIVEN. Structurally this impact is evident via the use of 'pastiching' the structure of situation comedy (sitcom) and stylistically through the use of Yiddish and the influence of other comedians' performance styles on the comic persona. The third chapter delves into the way Jewish cultural identity is represented through stand-up comedy and Jewish cultural identity is presented through domestic comedy. The stand-up comedian, through persona, audience relationship and other devices associated with the form, becomes the representation of Jewish cultural identity. Characters, story and situation, through the use of both comic traits (elements associated with Jewish cultural identity) and stereotypes, become the presentation of Jewish cultural identity.