Athol Fugard, Hon. , (born 11 June 1932), is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright. He is best known for his political and penetrating plays opposing the system of
apartheid and for the 2005
Oscar-winning
film of his novel ''Tsotsi'', directed by
Gavin Hood.
Acclaimed as "the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world" by ''
Time'' in 1985, Fugard continues to write and has published more than thirty plays. Fugard was an adjunct professor of playwriting, acting and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the
University of California, San Diego.
He is the recipient of many awards, honours, and honorary degrees, including the 2005
Order of Ikhamanga in Silver "for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre" from the government of South Africa.
He is also an Honorary Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
.
Fugard was honoured in Cape Town with the opening of the
Fugard Theatre in
District Six in 2010, and received a
Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2011.
Personal history
Fugard was born as Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard, in
Middelburg, Eastern Cape, South Africa, on 11 June 1932. His mother, Marrie (Potgieter), an
Afrikaner
Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from Free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: ...
, operated first a general store and then a lodging house; his father, Harold Fugard, was a disabled former
jazz pianist of Irish, English and French Huguenot descent.
In 1935, his family moved to Port Elizabeth
Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Sou ...
.[ ( Google Books limited preview.)] In 1938, he began attending primary school at Marist Brothers College. After being awarded a scholarship, he enrolled at a local technical college for secondary education and then studied Philosophy and Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, but he dropped out of the university in 1953, a few months before final examinations.[ He left home, hitchhiked to North Africa with a friend, and then spent the next two years working in east Asia on a steamer ship, the ''SS Graigaur'',][ where he began writing, an experience "celebrated" in his 1999 autobiographical play ''The Captain's Tiger: a memoir for the stage''.][ ( Google Books limited preview.)]
In September 1956, he married Sheila Meiring, a University of Cape Town Drama School student whom he had met the previous year. Now known as Sheila Fugard
Sheila Meiring Fugard (born 1932 in England) is a writer of short stories and plays and the ex-wife of South African playwright Athol Fugard.
Personal history
Born in Birmingham, England in 1932, Sheila Meiring moved with her parents to South Af ...
, she is a novelist and poet. Their daughter Lisa Fugard
Lisa Fugard is a South African writer and actor. She was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the only child of playwright Athol Fugard and novelist Sheila Meiring Fugard.
Career
Fugard moved to New York City in 1980 to pursue an acting career, ...
is a novelist. In 2015, after almost 60 years of marriage, the couple divorced. In 2016, in New York City Hall, Fugard was married to South African writer and academic Paula Fourie. Fugard and Fourie presently live in the Cape Winelands region of South Africa.
The Fugards moved to Johannesburg in 1958, where he worked as a clerk in a Native Commissioners' Court, which "made him keenly aware of the injustices of apartheid."[ He was good friends with prominent local anti-apartheid figures, which had a profound impact on Fugard, whose plays' political impetus brought him into conflict with the national government; to avoid prosecution, he had his plays produced and published outside South Africa.][ A former alcoholic, Fugard has been a teetotaler since the early 1980s.
For several years, Fugard lived in San Diego, California,] where he taught as an adjunct professor of playwriting, acting, and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).[ 'Times Topics'' menu includes link to UCSD YouTube clip of Athol Fugard's lecture, "A Catholic Antigone: an episode in the life of Hildegard of Bingen">Antigone">'Times Topics'' menu includes link to UCSD YouTube clip of Athol Fugard's lecture, "A Catholic Antigone: an episode in the life of Hildegard of Bingen", Eugene M. Burke C.S.P. Lectureship on Religion and Society, University of California, San Diego (UCSD).]] For the academic year 2000–2001, he was the IU Class of 1963 Wells Scholar Professor at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.[ (RealAudio clip of interview.)] In 2012, Fugard relocated to South Africa, where he now lives permanently.
Career
Early period
In 1958, Fugard organised "a multiracial theatre for which he wrote, directed, and acted", writing and producing several plays for it, including ''No-Good Friday'' (1958) and ''Nongogo'' (1959), in which he and his colleague black South African actor Zakes Mokae performed.[ In 1978, Richard Eder of '' The New York Times'' criticized ''Nongogo'' as "awkward and thin. It is unable to communicate very much about its characters, or make them much more than the servants of a noticeably ticking plot." Eder argued, "Queenie is the most real of the characters. Her sense of herself and where she wants to go makes her believable and the crumbling of her dour defenses at a touch of hope makes her affecting. By contrast, Johnny is unreal. His warmth and hopefulness at the start crumble too suddenly and too completely".
After returning to Port Elizabeth in the early 1960s, Athol and Sheila Fugard started The Circle Players,][ which derives its name from the production of '' The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' by ]Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
.[ ( Google Books.)]
In 1961, in Johannesburg, Fugard and Mokae starred as the brothers Morris and Zachariah in the single-performance world première of Fugard's play ''The Blood Knot
''Blood Knot'' is an early play by South African playwright, actor, and director Athol Fugard. Its single-performance premier was in 1961 in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the playwright and Zakes Mokae playing the brothers Morris and Zachariah ...
'' (revised and retitled ''Blood Knot'' in 1987), directed by Barney Simon. In 1989, Lloyd Richards of '' The Paris Review'' declared ''The Blood Knot'' to be Fugard's first "major play".
Refusal to stage for "Whites Only" audiences
In 1962, Fugard found the question of whether he could "work in a theatre which excludes 'Non-Whites'--or includes them only on the basis of special segregated performance-- increasingly pressing". It was made more so by the decision of British Equity
Equity, formerly officially titled the British Actors' Equity Association, is the trade union for the performing arts and entertainment industries.
Formed by a group of West End performers in 1930, the union grew to include performers and st ...
to prevent any British entertainer visiting South Africa unless the audiences were multi-racial. In a decision that caused him to reflect on the power of art to effect change, Fugard decided that the "answer must be No".That old argument used to be so comforting; so plausible: 'One person in that segregated, white audience, might be moved to think, and then to change, by what he saw'.
I'm beginning to wonder whether it really works that way. The supposition seems to be that there is a didactic--a teaching through feeling element in art. What I do know is that art can give meaning, can render meaningful areas of experience, and most certainly also enhances. But teach? Contradict? State the opposite to what you believe and then lead you to accept it?
In other words, can art change a man or woman? No. That is what life does. Art is no substitute for life.
Of the few venues in the country where a play can be presented to mixed audiences some, Fugard noted, were little better than barns. But he concluded that under these circumstances "every conceivable dignity--audience, producer, act, 'professional' etc.--" was "operative" in the white theatre except one, "human dignity".
Fugard publicly supported the Anti-Apartheid Movement (1959–94) in the international boycott of South African theatres due to their segregated audiences. The results were additional restrictions and surveillance, leading him to have his plays published and produced outside South Africa.[
]Lucille Lortel
Lucille Lortel (née Wadler, December 16, 1900 – April 4, 1999) was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for ...
produced ''The Blood Knot'' at the Cricket Theatre, Off Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
, in New York City in 1964, "launch ng Fugard's "American career."
The Serpent Players
In the 1960s, Fugard formed the Serpent Players, whose name derives from its first venue, the former snake pit (hence the name) at the Port Elizabeth Museum,[ "a group of black actors worker-players who earned their living as teachers, clerks, and industrial workers, and cannot thus be considered amateurs in the manner of leisured whites", developing and performing plays "under surveillance by the Security Police", according to Loren Kruger's ''The Dis-illusion of Apartheid'', published in 2004.][ ( Google Books limited preview.)] The group largely consisted of black men, including Winston Ntshona, John Kani, Welcome Duru
Welcome Duru (1933–2009) was a South African actor, boxing promoter, composer, musician, politician and a socialite, also known as ''Bra Wel''.
Early life
Duru was born in Korsten (Port Elizabeth), South Africa, but due to forced removals gr ...
, Fats Bookholane and Mike Ngxolo as well as Nomhle Nkonyeni and Mabel Magada. They all got together, albeit at different intervals, and decided to do something about their lives using the stage. In 1961 they met Athol Fugard, a white man who grew up in Port Elizabeth and who recently returned from Johannesburg, and asked him if he could work with them "as he had the know-how theatrically—the tricks, how to use the stage, movements, everything"; they worked with Athol Fugard since then, "and that is how the Serpent Players got together."["'Art is Life and Life is Art'. An interview with John Kani and Winston Ntshona of the Serpent Players from South Africa", in ''Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies'' nternet 6(2), 1976, pp. 5–26. Available from]
eScholarship
University of California. Retrieved 26 July 2017. At the time, the group performed anything they could lay their hands on in South Africa as they had no access to any libraries. These included Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
, August Strindberg, Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...
, William Shakespeare and many other prominent playwrights of the time. In an interview in California, Ntshona and Kani were asked why they were doing the play '' Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'', considered a highly political and telling story of the South African political landscape at the time. Ntshona answered: "We are just a group of artists who love theatre. And we have every right to open the doors to anyone who wants to take a look at our play and our work...We believe that art is life and conversely, life is art. And no sensible man can divorce one from the other. That's it. Other attributes are merely labels." They mainly performed at the St Stephen's Hall – renamed the Douglas Ngange Mbopa Memorial Hall in 2013 – adjacent to St Stephen's Church, and other spaces in and around New Brighton, the oldest Black township in Port Elizabeth.
According to Loren Kruger, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago,
the Serpent Players used Brecht's elucidation of gestic acting, dis-illusion, and social critique, as well as their own experience of the satiric comic routines of urban African vaudeville, to explore the theatrical force of Brecht's techniques, as well as the immediate political relevance of a play about land distribution. Their work on the '' Caucasian Chalk Circle'' and, a year later, on '' Antigone''[ led directly to the creation, in 1966, of what is still ]004 004, 0O4, O04, OO4 may refer to:
* 004, fictional British 00 Agent
* 0O4, Corning Municipal Airport (California)
* O04, the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation
* Abdul Haq Wasiq, Guantanamo detainee 004
* Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engine
* Lauda ...
South Africa's most distinctive ''Lehrstück'' earning play
Earning can refer to:
* Labour (economics)
*Earnings of a company
*Merit
Merit may refer to:
Religion
* Merit (Christianity)
* Merit (Buddhism)
* Punya (Hinduism)
* Imputed righteousness in Reformed Christianity
Companies and brands
* Merit ...
''The Coat''. Based on an incident at one of the many political trials involving the Serpent Players, ''The Coat'' dramatized the choices facing a woman whose husband, convicted of anti-apartheid political activity, left her only a coat and instructions to use it.
Clive Barnes of ''The New York Times'' panned ''People Are Living There'' (1969) in 1971, arguing: "There are splinters of realities here, and pregnancies of feeling, hut sic">nowiki/>sicnothing of significance emerges. In Mr. Fugard's earlier plays he seemed to be dealing with life at a proper level of humanity. Here—if real people are living there—they remain oddly quiet about it...The first act rambles disconsolately, like a lonely type writer looking for a subject and the second act produces with pride a birthday party of Chaplinesque
''White Buildings'' was the first collection (1926) of poetry by Hart Crane, an American modernist poet, critical to both lyrical and language poetic traditions.
The book features well-known pieces like "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen," t ...
bathos but less than Chaplinesque invention and spirit..he characters
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
harangue one another in an awkward dislocation between a formal speech and an interior monologue." Mark Blankenship of ''Variety'' negatively reviewed a 2005 revival of the same work, writing that it "lacks the emotional intensity and theatrical imagination that mark such Fugard favorites" as '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys''. Blankenship also stated, however, that the performance he attended featuring "only haphazard sketches of plot and character" was perhaps the result of Fugard allowing director Suzanne Shepard to revise the play without showing him the changes.
The Serpent Players conceptualised and co-authored many plays that it performed for a variety of audiences in many theatres around the world. The following are some of its notable and most popular plays:
* Its first production was Niccolò Machiavelli's '' La Mandragola'', directed by Fugard as '' The Cure'' and set in the township. Other productions include Georg Buchner
Georg may refer to:
* ''Georg'' (film), 1997
*Georg (musical), Estonian musical
* Georg (given name)
* Georg (surname)
* , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker
See also
* George (disambiguation)
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
* G ...
's '' Woyzeck'', Brecht's '' The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' and Sophocles' '' Antigone''. When the group had turned to improvisation, they came up with classic works such as '' Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' and ''The Island The Island(s) may refer to:
Places
* Any of various islands around the world, see the list of islands
* The Island (Cache County, Utah), an island on the Bear River, Utah
* The Island, Chennai, a river island in India
* The Island, Chicago, a n ...
'', emerging as inner experiences of the actors who are also the co-authors of the plays.
* In ''The Coat'', Kruger observes, "The participants were engaged not only in representing social relationships on stage but also on enacting and revising their own dealings with each other and with institutions of apartheid oppression from the law courts downward", and "this engagement testified to the real power of Brecht's apparently utopian plan to abolish the separation of player and audience and to make of each player a 'statesman' or social actor...Work on ''The Coat'' led indirectly to the Serpent Players' most famous and most Brechtian productions: '' Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' (1972) and ''The Island The Island(s) may refer to:
Places
* Any of various islands around the world, see the list of islands
* The Island (Cache County, Utah), an island on the Bear River, Utah
* The Island, Chennai, a river island in India
* The Island, Chicago, a n ...
'' (1973)."[
Fugard developed these two plays for the Serpent Players in workshops, working with John Kani and Winston Ntshona,][ publishing them in 1974 with his own play ''Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act'' (1972). The authorities considered the title of ''The Island'', which alludes to Robben Island, the prison where ]Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...
was being held, too controversial, so Fugard and the Serpent Players used the alternative title ''The Hodoshe Span'' (''Hodoshe'' meaning "carrion fly" in Xhosa).
* These plays "espoused a Brechtian attention to the demonstration of gest and social situations and encouraged audiences to analyze rather than merely applaud the action"; for example, '' Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'', which infused a Brechtian critique and vaudevillian irony-–especially in Kani's virtuoso improvisation-–even provoked an African audience's critical interruption and interrogation of the action.[
* While dramatising frustrations in the lives of his audience members, the plays simultaneously drew them into the action and attempted to have them analyse the situations of the characters in Brechtian fashion, according to Kruger.][
* ''Blood Knot'' was filmed by the BBC in 1967, with Fugard's collaboration, starring the Jamaican actor Charles Hyatt as Zachariah and Fugard himself as Morris, as in the original 1961 première in Johannesburg.] Less pleased than Fugard, the South African government of B.J. Vorster confiscated Fugard's passport.[Dennis Walder]
"Crossing Boundaries: The Genesis of the Township Plays"
Special issue on Athol Fugard, ''Twentieth Century Literature'' (Winter 1993); rpt. ''findarticles.com''. Retrieved 4 October 2008.
Fugard's play '' A Lesson from Aloes'' (1978) was described as one of his major works by Alvin Klein of ''The New York Times'', though others have written more lukewarm reviews.
Yale Rep premieres, 1980s
'' "Master Harold"...and the Boys'', written in 1982, incorporates "strong autobiographical matter"; nonetheless "it is fiction, not memoir", as '' Cousins: A Memoir'' and some of Fugard's other works are subtitled.[ ( Google Books limited preview.)] The play deals with the relationship between a 17-year-old white South African and two African men who work for the white youth's family. Its world premiere was performed by Danny Glover
Danny Lebern Glover (; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is widely known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the ''Lethal Weapon'' film series. He also had leading roles in his films include ...
, Zeljko Ivanek and Zakes Mokae, at the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Connecticut, in March 1982.
''The Road to Mecca'' was presented at the Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut, in May 1984. Directed by Fugard, the cast starred Carmen Mathews
Carmen Sylvia Mathews (May 8, 1911 – August 31, 1995) was an American actress and environmentalist.
Biography
Mathews was born in Philadelphia. She studied first at Bennett Junior College and then in London at the Royal Academy of Dram ...
, Marianne Owen, and Tom Aldredge. Along with ''Master Harold'', it proved to be one of Fugard's most acclaimed works. It is the story of an elderly recluse in a small South African town who has spent 15 years on an obsessive artistic project.
Fugard appeared in his ''A Place With the Pigs'' at the Yale Rep in New Haven CT, in 1987. Inspired by the true story of World War II Soviet deserter, Fugard plays a paranoid who spent four decades hiding with his pigs. As with ''The Road to Mecca'', Fugards critics readily appreciated the metaphor for a life of internal exile.
Post-apartheid plays
The first play that Fugard wrote after the end of apartheid, ''Valley Song,'' was premiered in Johannesburg, in August, 1995, with Fugard in the role of both a white, and of a coloured
Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...
, farmer. While they dispute property titles, both share a reverence for the land and fear change. In October 1995, Fugard took the play to the United States with a production by the Manhattan Theatre Club at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey.
In January 2009, Fugard returned to New Haven for the premiere in the ''Coming Home.'' Veronika, the granddaughter of Buk, the coloured farmer in ''Valley Song,'' leaves the Karoo to pursue a singing career in Cape Town but then returns, after his death, to create a new life on the land for her young son.
The Fugard Theatre, in the District Six area of Cape Town opened with performances by the Isango Portobello
The Isango Ensemble (''isango'' meaning "gate" or "port" or "gateway" in Xhosa and Zulu) is a Cape Town-based theatre company led by director Mark Dornford-May and music directors Pauline Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis. It was established in 2000, ...
theatre company in February 2010 and a new play written and directed by Athol Fugard, ''The Train Driver'', played at the theatre in March 2010.
In April 2014, returned to the stage in the world premiere of his ''The Shadow of a Hummingbird'' at the Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven. This short play was performed with an “introductory scene” compiled by Paula Fourie from Fugard’s journal writings. With "the playwright digging through these diaries on a set which resembles an old, busy writer’s workspace", the scene blends into the main play, which begins when Boba, the grandson of the story-telling grandfather character Oupa (played by Fugard) comes to visit.
Film
Fugard's plays are produced internationally, have won multiple awards, and several have been made into films["Filmography" in . Retrieved 3 October 2008.] (see ''Filmography'' below). Fugard himself performed in the first of these, as Boesman alongside Yvonne Bryceland as Lena, in ''Boesman and Lena'' directed by Ross Devenish in 1973.
His film debut as a director occurred in 1992, when he co-directed the adaptation of his play '' The Road to Mecca'' with Peter Goldsmid, who also wrote the screenplay. The film adaptation of his novel '' Tsotsi'', written and directed by Gavin Hood, won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
in 2006.
Outside of his own work, Fugard has a number of cameo film roles, most notably as General Smuts in Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. He was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Academy of Film and Televisio ...
's ''Gandhi'' (1982), and as Doctor Sundesval in Sydney Schanberg's ''The Killing Fields'' (1984).
Plays
In chronological order of first production and/or publication:[Fisher observes in the Fugard "Biography" section of ''Athol Fugard: Statements'' that South African writer and critic Gray, Stephen classifies many of Fugard's dramatic works according to chronological periods of composition and similarities of style: "Apprenticeship" ( 956–957); "Social Realism" (1958–1961); "Chamber Theatre" (1961–1970); "Improvised Theatre" (1966–1973); and "Poetic Symbolism" (1975 1990.]
Bibliography
* ''Statements: hree Plays'. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (OUP), 1974. (10). (13). (10). (13). (Co-authored with John Kani and Winston Ntshona; see below.)
* ''Three Port Elizabeth Plays'': Blood Knot; Hello and Goodbye; ''and'' Boesman and Lena. Oxford and New York, 1974. .
* '' Sizwe Bansi Is Dead'' and ''The Island The Island(s) may refer to:
Places
* Any of various islands around the world, see the list of islands
* The Island (Cache County, Utah), an island on the Bear River, Utah
* The Island, Chennai, a river island in India
* The Island, Chicago, a n ...
''. New York: Viking Press, 1976.
* '' Dimetos and Two Early Plays''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1977. .
* Boesman and Lena ''and Other Plays''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1980. .
* ''Selected Plays of Fugard: Notes''. Ed. Dennis Walder. London: Longman, 1980. Beirut: York Press, 1980. .
* '' Tsotsi: a novel''. New York: Random House, 1980. .
* '' A Lesson from Aloes: A Play''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1981.
* ''Marigolds in August
''Marigolds in August'' is a play by South Africa's Athol Fugard.
Plot
The play portrays the tension between three people (two black – one white) trying to make out a living.
The play takes place near Port Elizabeth. Daan (a resident in a n ...
''. A.D. Donker, 1982. .
* '' Boesman and Lena''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1983. .
* ''People Are Living There
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prop ...
''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1983. .
* '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys''. New York and London: Penguin, 1984. .
* ''Notebooks 1960-1977''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.
* '' The Road to Mecca: A Play in Two Acts''. London: Faber and Faber, 1985. . Helen Martins
The Owl House is a museum in Nieu-Bethesda, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The owner, Helen Martins, turned her house and the area around it into a visionary environment, elaborately decorated with ground glass and containing more than 300 concr ...
of New Bethesda, Eastern Cape, South Africa.">Nieu-Bethesda">New Bethesda, Eastern Cape, South Africa.* ''Selected Plays''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1987. . [Includes: '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys''; '' Blood Knot'' (new version); ''Hello and Goodbye''; '' Boesman and Lena''.]
* ''A Place with the Pigs: a personal parable''. London: Faber and Faber, 1988. .
* ''My Children! My Africa! and Selected Shorter Plays''. Ed. and introd. Stephen Gray (writer), Stephen Gray. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1990. .
* '' Blood Knot and Other Plays''. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. .
* '' Playland and Other Worlds''. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand UP, 1992. .
* ''The Township Plays''. Ed. and introd. Dennis Walder. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1993. (10). (13). ncludes: ''No-good Friday'', ''Nongogo">No-good_Friday.html" ;"title="ncludes: ''No-good Friday">ncludes: ''No-good Friday'', ''Nongogo'', ''The Coat'', ''Sizwe Bansi Is Dead'', and ''The Island The Island(s) may refer to:
Places
* Any of various islands around the world, see the list of islands
* The Island (Cache County, Utah), an island on the Bear River, Utah
* The Island, Chennai, a river island in India
* The Island, Chicago, a n ...
''.]
* '' Cousins: A Memoir'', Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1994. .
* ''Hello and Goodbye''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1994. .
* ''Valley Song
A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...
''. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. .
* '' The Captain's Tiger: A Memoir for the Stage''. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1997. .
* ''Athol Fugard: Plays''. London: Faber and Faber, 1998. .
* ''Interior Plays''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 2000. .
* ''Port Elizabeth Plays''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 2000. .
* ''Sorrows and Rejoicings
''Sorrows and Rejoicings'' is a short play first published in November 2001, written by Athol Fugard. The play is set in the post- Apartheid South African town of Karoo.
Characters
Dawid Olivier, a white poet, recently deceased
Marta, Dawid's ...
''. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2002. .
* '' Exits and Entrances''. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2004. .
;Co-authored with John Kani and Winston Ntshona
* ''Statements: hree Plays'' 1974. By Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. Rev. ed. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1978. (10). (13). ["Two workshop productions devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, and a new play"; includes: '' Sizwe Bansi Is Dead'' and ''The Island The Island(s) may refer to:
Places
* Any of various islands around the world, see the list of islands
* The Island (Cache County, Utah), an island on the Bear River, Utah
* The Island, Chennai, a river island in India
* The Island, Chicago, a n ...
'', and ''Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act''.]
;Co-authored with Ross Devenish
* ''The Guest: an episode in the life of Eugene Marais''. By Athol Fugard and Ross Devenish. Craighall: A. D. Donker, 1977. . (''Die besoeker: 'n episode in die lewe van Eugene Marais''. Trans. into Afrikaans by Wilma Stockenstrom. Craighall: A. D. Donker, 1977. .)
Filmography
;Films adapted from Fugard's plays and novel[
* '' Boesman and Lena'' (1974), dir. Ross Devenish
* '']Marigolds in August
''Marigolds in August'' is a play by South Africa's Athol Fugard.
Plot
The play portrays the tension between three people (two black – one white) trying to make out a living.
The play takes place near Port Elizabeth. Daan (a resident in a n ...
'' (1980), dir. Ross Devenish
* '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys'' (1984), TV movie, dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, first broadcast on Showtime[. Retrieved 3 October 2008.]
* '' The Road to Mecca'' (1991), co-dir. by Fugard and Peter Goldsmid (screen adapt.)
* '' Boesman and Lena'' (2000), dir. John Berry
* '' Tsotsi'' (2005), screen adapt. and dir. Gavin Hood; 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
[
* '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys'' (2010), dir. Lonny Price
;Film roles][
*'' Boesman and Lena'' (1974) as Boesman
* '']The Guest at Steenkampskraal
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speak ...
'' (1977)[. Retrieved 4 October 2008.] as Eugene Marais
Eugene may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...
*'' Meetings with Remarkable Men'' (1979)[. Retrieved 3 October 2008.] as Professor Skridlov
*''Marigolds in August
''Marigolds in August'' is a play by South Africa's Athol Fugard.
Plot
The play portrays the tension between three people (two black – one white) trying to make out a living.
The play takes place near Port Elizabeth. Daan (a resident in a n ...
'' (1980) as Paulus Olifant
*'' Gandhi'' (1982) as General Jan Smuts
*''The Killing Fields
A killing field is a concept in military science.
Killing field may also refer to:
* Killing Fields, a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than a million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of ...
'' (1984) as Doctor Sundesval
*'' The Road to Mecca'' (1991) as Reverend Marius Byleveld
Selected awards and nominations
* Praemium Imperiale 2014
;Theatre[A list of Fugard's Broadway theatre award nominations may be found at the IBDB. ]
* Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...
** 1971 – Best Foreign Play – '' Boesman and Lena'' (winner)
* Tony Award
** 1975 – Best Play – '' Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' / ''The Island The Island(s) may refer to:
Places
* Any of various islands around the world, see the list of islands
* The Island (Cache County, Utah), an island on the Bear River, Utah
* The Island, Chennai, a river island in India
* The Island, Chicago, a n ...
'' – Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona (nomination)
** 2011 – Special Tony Award Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre (winner)
* New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards
** 1981 – Best Play – ''A Lesson From Aloes'' (winner)
** 1988 – Best Foreign Play – '' The Road to Mecca'' (winner)[
* Evening Standard Award
** 1983 – Best Play – '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys'' (winner)
* ]Drama Desk Awards
The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fol ...
** 1982 – '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys'' (winner)
* Lucille Lortel Awards
** 1992 – Outstanding Revival – '' Boesman and Lena'' (winner)[
** 1996 – Outstanding Body of Work (winner)]
* The Audie Awards ( Audio Publishers Association)
** 1999 – Theatrical Productions – '' The Road to Mecca'' (winner)
* Outer Critics Circle Award
The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on Broadway and Off-Broadway. They are presented by the Outer Critics Circle (OCC), the official organization of New York theater writers for out-of-town newspa ...
** 2007 – Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play – '' Exits and Entrances'' (nomination)[
;Honorary awards
* Writers Guild of America, East Award
** 1986 – Evelyn F. Burkey Memorial Award – (along with Lloyd Richards)
* National Orders Award (South Africa)
** 2005 – The Order of Ikhamanga in Silver – "for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre"]
* American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award
** 2014 - Golden Plate Award
;Honorary degrees
* Yale University, 1983
* Wittenberg University, 1992
* University of the Witwatersrand, 1993
* Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, 1995
* Princeton University, 1998
* University of Stellenbosch, 2006
Reviews
* Fullerton, Ian (1980), review of ''Tsotsi'', in '' Cencrastus'' No. 4. Winter 1980–81, p. 41,
See also
* South Africa under apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
Notes
References
*
The Amajuba Resource Pack
''. The Oxford Playhouse and Farber Foundry: In Association with Mmabana Arts Foundation. Oxford Playhouse, October 2004. Retrieved 1 October 2008. Downloadable PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
. Photographs by Robert Day; Written by Rachel G. Briscoe; Edited by Rupert Rowbotham; Overseen by Yael Farber." 18 pages.* ''Athol Fugard''. Special issue of ''Twentieth Century Literature'' 39.4 (Winter 1993)
Index
''Findarticles.com''. . Retrieved 4 October 2008. ncludes: Athol Fugard, "Some Problems of a Playwright from South Africa" (Transcript. 11 pages).*Blumberg, Marcia Shirley, and Dennis Walder, eds. ''South African Theatre As/and Intervention''. Amsterdam and Atlanta, Georgia: Editions Rodopi B.V., 1999. (10). (13).
*Fugard, Athol.
A Lesson from Aloes
'. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1989. (10). (13). Google Books. Retrieved 1 October 2008. (Limited preview available.)
*–––, and Chris Boyd
"Athol Fugard on ''Tsotsi'', Truth and Reconciliation, Camus, Pascal and 'courageous pessimism'..."
''The Morning After: Performing Arts in Australia'' (Blog). ''WordPress''. 29 January 2006. Retrieved 4 October 2008. ["An edited interview with South African playwright Athol Fugard (in San Diego) on the publication of his only novel '' Tsotsi'' in Australia, 29 January 2006."]
*–––, and Serena Davies.
"My Week: Athol Fugard"
'' The Telegraph'', 8 April 2007. Retrieved 29 September 2008. he playwright describes his week to Serena Davies, prior to the opening of his play ''Victory'' at the Theatre Royal, Bath (telephone interview).">Theatre Royal, Bath">he playwright describes his week to Serena Davies, prior to the opening of his play ''Victory'' at the Theatre Royal, Bath (telephone interview).* Gray, Stephen. ''Athol Fugard''. Johannesburg and New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. (10). (13). (10). (13).
*–––, ed. and introd. ''File on Fugard''. London: Methuen Drama, 1991. (10). (13).
*–––. ''My Children! My Africa! and Selected Shorter Plays'', by Athol Fugard. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, Witwatersrand University Press, 1990. .
*Kruger, Loren.
Post-Imperial Brecht Politics and Performance, East and South
'. Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. (10). (13). (Google Books; limited preview available.)
*McDonald, Marianne.
Department of Theatre and Dance. University of California, San Diego. Rpt. from ''TheatreForum'' 21 (Summer/Fall 2002). Retrieved 2 October 2008.
*McLuckie, Craig ( Okanagan College)
"Athol Fugard (1932–)"
'' The Literary Encyclopedia''. 8 October 2003. Retrieved 29 September 2008.
*Morris, Stephen Leigh.
"Falling Sky: Athol Fugard's ''Victory''"
''LA Weekly
''LA Weekly'' is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin, who served as president and editor until 1991. Voice Media Group sold the paper in late 2017 to Semanal Media LLC, whose paren ...
'', 31 January 2008. Retrieved 29 September 2008. (Theatre review of the American première at The Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, California.)
*Spencer, Charles.
"Victory: The Fight's Gone Out of Fugard"
''The Telegraph'', 17 August 2007. Retrieved 30 September 2008. heatre review of ''Victory'' at the Theatre Royal, Bath.">Theatre_Royal,_Bath.html" ;"title="heatre review of ''Victory'' at the Theatre Royal, Bath">heatre review of ''Victory'' at the Theatre Royal, Bath.*Walder, Dennis. ''Athol Fugard''. Writers and Their Work. Tavistock: Northcote House in association with the British Council, 2003. (10). (13).
*Wertheim, Albert. ''The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard: From South Africa to the World''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. (10). (13).
*–––, ed. and introd. ''Athol Fugard: A Casebook''. asebooks on Modern Dramatists Gen. Ed., Kimball King. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997. (10). (13). (Out of print; unavailable.) ardcover ed. published by Garland Publishing; the series of Casebooks on Modern Dramatists is now published by Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis">Routledge">ardcover ed. published by Garland Publishing; the series of Casebooks on Modern Dramatists is now published by Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis, and does not include this title.]
External links
"Athol Fugard"
Faculty profile. Department of Theatre and Dance. University of California, San Diego. (Lists ''Athol Fugard: Statements: An Athol Fugard site by Iain Fisher'' as "Personal Website"; see below.)
*
*
*
Athol Fugard
at the Internet Off-Broadway Database (IOBDb)
*
Athol Fugard
' at ''Times Topics'' in ''The New York Times''. (Includes YouTube Video clip of Athol Fugard's Burke Lecture "A Catholic Antigone: An Episode in the Life of Hildegard of Bingen", the Eugene M. Burke C.S.P. Lectureship on Religion and Society, at the University of California, San Diego, introduced by Professor of Theatre and Classics Marianne McDonald, UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance, April 2003 how ID: 7118 1:28:57 uration)
Athol Fugard
at WorldCat
"Athol Fugard Biography"
– "Athol Fugard", rpt. by bookrags.com ( Ambassadors Group, Inc.) from the ''Encyclopedia of World Biography''. ("2005–2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.")
"Athol Fugard (1932– )"
at '' Britannica Online Encyclopedia'' (subscription based; free trial available)
"Athol Fugard (1932– )"
– Complete Guide to Playwright and Plays at '' Doollee.com''
*
Athol Fugard: Statements: An Athol Fugard site by Iain Fisher
'. (Listed as "Personal Website" in UCSB faculty profile; see above.)
"Books by Athol Fugard"
at Google Books (several with limited previews available)
"Full Profile: Mr Athol 'Lanigan' Fugard"
in ''Who's Who of Southern Africa''. Copyright 2007 24.com (Media24). (Includes hyperlinked "News Articles" from 2000 to 2008.)
"Interviews: South Africa's Fugards: Writing About Wrongs"
'' Morning Edition''. National Public Radio. NPR RealAudio. 16 June 2006. (With hyperlinked "Related NPR stories" from 2001 to 2006.)
*
"Athol Fugard"
in the ''Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre and Performance''
Nancy T. Kearns collection of Athol Fugard materials, 1983–1996
held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fugard, Athol
1932 births
Living people
People from Middelburg, Eastern Cape
Afrikaner people
South African people of Dutch descent
South African people of Irish descent
South African people of English descent
South African people of French descent
South African male film actors
South African dramatists and playwrights
South African male novelists
Special Tony Award recipients
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Writers Guild of America Award winners
Recipients of the Order of Ikhamanga
White South African anti-apartheid activists
Male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century South African writers
21st-century South African writers
20th-century South African male actors
21st-century South African male actors