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
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 ...
and for the 2005
Oscar
Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to:
People
* Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms.
* Oscar (Irish mythology), ...
-winning
film of his novel ''Tsotsi'', directed by
Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood (born 12 May 1963) is a South African filmmaker, and actor, best known for writing and directing ''Tsotsi'' (2005), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also directed the films ''X-Men Origins: Wolverine'', ' ...
.
Acclaimed as "the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world" by ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' 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
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
.
He is the recipient of many awards, honours, and honorary degrees, including the 2005
Order of Ikhamanga
The Order of Ikhamanga is a South African honour. It was instituted on 30 November 2003 and is granted by the President of South Africa for achievements in arts, culture, literature, music, journalism, and sports (which were initially recognised b ...
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
The Fugard Theatre, also known as The Fugard, was opened in the District Six area of Cape Town, South Africa in February 2010. The site is currently managed by the District Six Museum Board following the theatre's official closure in March 2021, ...
in
District Six
District Six (Afrikaans ''Distrik Ses'') is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were History of South Africa in the Apartheid era#Forced removal, forcibly removed during the 1970s ...
in 2010, and received a
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
for lifetime achievement in 2011.
Personal history
Fugard was born as Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard, in
Middelburg, Eastern Cape
Middelburg () is a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, in the Great Karoo. It lies in the Upper Karoo, 1,279 m above sea level, with a population of 19,000. , 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
Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instru ...
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
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
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
The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...
, 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
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
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, 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
The Boland (Afrikaans for "top country" or "land above") is a region of the Western Cape province of South Africa, situated to the northeast of Cape Town in the middle and upper courses of the Berg and Breede Rivers, around the Boland Mountains ...
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
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 ...
."[ 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
Hildegard of Bingen (german: Hildegard von Bingen; la, Hildegardis Bingensis; 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher ...
", 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
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universit ...
in Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County, Indiana, Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the List of municipalities in Indiana, seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside ...
.[ (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
Zakes Makgona Mokae (5 August 1934 – 11 September 2009) was a South African-American actor of theatre and film.
Life and career
Mokae was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to the United Kingdom in 1961, and to the United States ...
performed.[ In 1978, Richard Eder of '']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' 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
''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' (german: Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a b ...
'' 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
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
.)
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
Barney Simon (13 April 1932 – 30 June 1995, Johannesburg) was a South African writer, playwright and director.
Early life
The son of working-class Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, Simon discovered a love of theatre while working under director ...
. In 1989, Lloyd Richards of ''The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'' 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 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
The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), was a British organisation that was at the centre of the international movement opposing the South African apartheid system and supporting South Africa's non-White population who were persecuted by the policie ...
(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
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
limited preview.) The group largely consisted of black men, including Winston Ntshona
Winston Ntshona (6 October 1941 – 2 August 2018) was a South African playwright and actor. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1975.
Biography
Born in Port Elizabeth, Zola Winston Ntshona worked alongside fellow South African Ath ...
, John Kani
Bonisile John Kani (born 30 August 1943) is a South African actor, author, director and playwright. He is known for portraying T'Chaka in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films '' Captain America: Civil War'' (2016) and ''Black Panther'' (2018), Ra ...
, Welcome Duru, 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
Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty p ...
, 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
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
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
''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' (originally produced and published as: ''Sizwe Bansi is Dead'') is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original produ ...
'', 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 University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
,
the Serpent Players used 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 ...
'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
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
, 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
''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' (german: Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a bet ...
'' and, a year later, on ''Antigone
In Greek mythology, Antigone ( ; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.Roman, L., & Roma ...
''[ 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''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 bathos but less than Chaplinesque invention and spirit.. he charactersharangue 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
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( , , ; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527), occasionally rendered in English as Nicholas Machiavel ( , ; see below), was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Renaissance. ...
's ''La Mandragola
''The Mandrake'' (Italian: ''La Mandragola'' ) is a satirical play by Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. Although the five-act comedy was published in 1524 and first performed in the carnival season of 1526, Machiavelli likel ...
'', directed by Fugard as ''The Cure
The Cure are an English Rock music, rock band formed in 1978 in Crawley, Crawley, West Sussex. Throughout numerous lineup changes since the band's formation, guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Robert Smith (musician), Robert Smith has re ...
'' 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
''Woyzeck'' () is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. Büchner wrote the play between July and October 1836, yet left it incomplete at his death in February 1837. The play first appeared in 1877 in a heavily edited version by Karl Emil Fr ...
'', Brecht's ''The Caucasian Chalk Circle
''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' (german: Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a b ...
'' and Sophocles' ''Antigone
In Greek mythology, Antigone ( ; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.Roman, L., & Roma ...
''. When the group had turned to improvisation, they came up with classic works such as ''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead
''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' (originally produced and published as: ''Sizwe Bansi is Dead'') is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original produ ...
'' and '' The Island'', 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
''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' (originally produced and published as: ''Sizwe Bansi is Dead'') is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original produ ...
'' (1972) and '' The Island'' (1973)."[
Fugard developed these two plays for the Serpent Players in workshops, working with ]John Kani
Bonisile John Kani (born 30 August 1943) is a South African actor, author, director and playwright. He is known for portraying T'Chaka in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films '' Captain America: Civil War'' (2016) and ''Black Panther'' (2018), Ra ...
and Winston Ntshona
Winston Ntshona (6 October 1941 – 2 August 2018) was a South African playwright and actor. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1975.
Biography
Born in Port Elizabeth, Zola Winston Ntshona worked alongside fellow South African Ath ...
,[ 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
Robben Island ( af, Robbeneiland) is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It takes its name from the Dutch word for seals (''robben''), hence the Dutch/Afrik ...
, 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
Xhosa may refer to:
* Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa
* Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people
See als ...
).
* 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
''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' (originally produced and published as: ''Sizwe Bansi is Dead'') is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original produ ...
'', 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
Charles Eglerton Hyatt (14 February 1931 – 01 January 2007) was a Jamaican actor, playwright, director, author and broadcaster. Hyatt was best known as a character actor and comedian who appeared in numerous films and television shows, beginni ...
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
Balthazar Johannes "B. J." Vorster (; also known as John Vorster; 13 December 1915 – 10 September 1983) was a South African apartheid politician who served as the prime minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and the State President of Sou ...
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
''A Lesson from Aloes'' is a 1978 play by South African playwright Athol Fugard.
Reception
In 1994, Alvin Klein of ''The New York Times'' described ''A Lesson from Aloes'' as one of Fugard's major works. In 2009, Don Aucoin of ''The Boston Gl ...
'' (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
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
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
Zakes Makgona Mokae (5 August 1934 – 11 September 2009) was a South African-American actor of theatre and film.
Life and career
Mokae was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to the United Kingdom in 1961, and to the United States ...
, at the Yale Repertory Theater
Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of Yale School of Drama, in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented student ...
in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
, in March 1982.
''The Road to Mecca'' was presented at the Yale Repertory Theatre
Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of Yale School of Drama, in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented student ...
, 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
Thomas Ernest Aldredge (February 28, 1928 – July 22, 2011) was an American television, film and stage actor.
He won a Daytime Emmy Award for playing the role of Shakespeare in ''Henry Winkler Meets William Shakespeare'' (1978). His Broadway ...
. 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
The Fugard Theatre, also known as The Fugard, was opened in the District Six area of Cape Town, South Africa in February 2010. The site is currently managed by the District Six Museum Board following the theatre's official closure in March 2021, ...
, in the District Six
District Six (Afrikaans ''Distrik Ses'') is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were History of South Africa in the Apartheid era#Forced removal, forcibly removed during the 1970s ...
area of Cape Town opened with performances by the Isango Portobello 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
Long Wharf Theatre is a nonprofit institution in New Haven, Connecticut, a pioneer in the not-for-profit regional theatre movement, the originator of several prominent plays, and a venue where many internationally known actors have appeared.
Fou ...
, 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
Yvonne Bryceland (18 November 1925 – 13 January 1992) was a South African stage actress. Some of her best-known work was in the plays of Athol Fugard.
Early life
She was born Yvonne Heilbuth in Cape Town, South Africa, the daughter of Adolphus ...
as Lena, in ''Boesman and Lena'' directed by Ross Devenish
Ross Devenish (born 15 November 1939) is a South African film director. His 1980 film '' Marigolds in August'' was entered into the 30th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Berlin Bear Anniversary Prize. His 1977 feature film ...
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
''Tsotsi'' is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Gavin Hood and produced by Peter Fudakowski. It is an adaptation of the novel ''Tsotsi'' by Athol Fugard and is a South African/UK co-production. Set in the Alexandra slum in Johann ...
'', written and directed by Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood (born 12 May 1963) is a South African filmmaker, and actor, best known for writing and directing ''Tsotsi'' (2005), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also directed the films ''X-Men Origins: Wolverine'', ' ...
, 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
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (24 May 1870 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Af ...
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
Sydney Hillel Schanberg (January 17, 1934 July 9, 2016) was an American journalist who was best known for his coverage of the war in Cambodia. He was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two George Polk awards, two Overseas Press Club awards, a ...
'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
Bonisile John Kani (born 30 August 1943) is a South African actor, author, director and playwright. He is known for portraying T'Chaka in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films '' Captain America: Civil War'' (2016) and ''Black Panther'' (2018), Ra ...
and Winston Ntshona
Winston Ntshona (6 October 1941 – 2 August 2018) was a South African playwright and actor. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1975.
Biography
Born in Port Elizabeth, Zola Winston Ntshona worked alongside fellow South African Ath ...
; see below.)
* ''Three Port Elizabeth Plays'': 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 ...
; Hello and Goodbye; ''and'' Boesman and Lena
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
. Oxford and New York, 1974. .
* ''Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' (originally produced and published as: ''Sizwe Bansi is Dead'') is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original produ ...
'' and '' The Island''. New York: Viking Press, 1976.
* '' Dimetos and Two Early Plays''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1977. .
* Boesman and Lena
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
''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 Lesson from Aloes'' is a 1978 play by South African playwright Athol Fugard.
Reception
In 1994, Alvin Klein of ''The New York Times'' described ''A Lesson from Aloes'' as one of Fugard's major works. In 2009, Don Aucoin of ''The Boston Gl ...
: A Play''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1981.
* '' Marigolds in August''. A.D. Donker, 1982. .
* ''Boesman and Lena
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1983. .
* '' People Are Living There''. 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_of_Nieu-Bethesda.html" ;"title="The_Owl_House_(museum).html" ;"title="uggested by the life and work of The Owl House (museum)">Helen Martins of Nieu-Bethesda">New Bethesda, Eastern Cape, South Africa.]
* ''Selected Plays''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1987. . [Includes: '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys''; ''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 ...
'' (new version); ''Hello and Goodbye''; ''Boesman and Lena
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
''.]
* '' A Place with the Pigs: a personal parable''. London: Faber and Faber, 1988. .
* ''My Children! My Africa!
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 apart ...
and Selected Shorter Plays''. Ed. and introd. Stephen Gray. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1990. .
* ''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 ...
and Other Plays''. New York: Theatre Communications Group
Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is a non-profit service organization headquartered in New York City that promotes professional non-profit theatre in the United States.
The organization also publishes ''American Theatre'' magazine and ''ARTSEA ...
, 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.html" ;"title="No-good_Friday.html" ;"title="ncludes: ''No-good Friday">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''.]
* '' Cousins: A Memoir'', Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1994. .
* ''Hello and Goodbye''. Oxford and New York: OUP, 1994. .
* '' Valley Song''. 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''. New York: Theatre Communications Group
Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is a non-profit service organization headquartered in New York City that promotes professional non-profit theatre in the United States.
The organization also publishes ''American Theatre'' magazine and ''ARTSEA ...
, 2002. .
* '' Exits and Entrances''. New York: Dramatists Play Service
Dramatists Play Service (also known as The Play Service) is a theatrical-publishing and licensing house, established in 1936 by members of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Society for Authors' Representatives. DPS publishes English-language ...
, 2004. .
;Co-authored with John Kani
Bonisile John Kani (born 30 August 1943) is a South African actor, author, director and playwright. He is known for portraying T'Chaka in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films '' Captain America: Civil War'' (2016) and ''Black Panther'' (2018), Ra ...
and Winston Ntshona
Winston Ntshona (6 October 1941 – 2 August 2018) was a South African playwright and actor. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1975.
Biography
Born in Port Elizabeth, Zola Winston Ntshona worked alongside fellow South African Ath ...
* ''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
''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' (originally produced and published as: ''Sizwe Bansi is Dead'') is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original produ ...
'' and '' The Island'', 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
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
by Wilma Stockenstrom. Craighall: A. D. Donker, 1977. .)
Filmography
;Films adapted from Fugard's plays and novel[
* '']Boesman and Lena
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
'' (1974), dir. Ross Devenish
Ross Devenish (born 15 November 1939) is a South African film director. His 1980 film '' Marigolds in August'' was entered into the 30th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Berlin Bear Anniversary Prize. His 1977 feature film ...
* '' Marigolds in August'' (1980), dir. Ross Devenish
* '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys'' (1984), TV movie, dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Sir Michael Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 5th Baronet (born 5 May 1940) is an American-born television, film, music video, and theatre director. Beginning his career in British television, Lindsay-Hogg became a pioneer in music film production, directing ...
, 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
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
'' (2000), dir. John Berry
* ''Tsotsi
''Tsotsi'' is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Gavin Hood and produced by Peter Fudakowski. It is an adaptation of the novel ''Tsotsi'' by Athol Fugard and is a South African/UK co-production. Set in the Alexandra slum in Johann ...
'' (2005), screen adapt. and dir. Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood (born 12 May 1963) is a South African filmmaker, and actor, best known for writing and directing ''Tsotsi'' (2005), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also directed the films ''X-Men Origins: Wolverine'', ' ...
; 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
Lonny Price (born March 9, 1959) is an American director, actor, and writer, primarily in theatre. He is perhaps best known for his creation of the role of Charley Kringas in the Broadway musical '' Merrily We Roll Along'' and for his New York di ...
;Film roles[
*'']Boesman and Lena
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
'' (1974) as Boesman
* '' The Guest at Steenkampskraal'' (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
''Meetings with Remarkable Men, autobiographical in nature, is the second volume of the ''All and Everything'' trilogy written by the Greek-Armenian spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff started working on the Russian manuscript in 1927, ...
'' (1979)[. Retrieved 3 October 2008.] as Professor Skridlov
*'' Marigolds in August'' (1980) as Paulus Olifant
*''Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
'' (1982) as General Jan Smuts
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (24 May 1870 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Af ...
*''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
Prince Takamatsu
The Praemium Imperiale ( ja, 高松宮殿下記念世界文化賞, Takamatsu-no-miya Denka Kinen Sekai Bunka-shō, World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu) is an international art prize inaugura ...
2014
;Theatre[A list of Fugard's Broadway theatre award nominations may be found at the ]IBDB
The Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It was conceived and created by Karen Hauser in 1996 and is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade assoc ...
.
* 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
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
'' (winner)
* Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
** 1975 – Best Play – ''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead
''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' (originally produced and published as: ''Sizwe Bansi is Dead'') is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original produ ...
'' / '' The Island'' – Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona (nomination)
** 2011 – Special Tony Award
The Special Tony Award category includes the Lifetime Achievement Tony Award and the Special Tony Award. These are non-competitive honorary awards, and the titles have changed over the years. The Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre ...
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
The ''Evening Standard'' Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are the oldest theatrical awards ceremony in the United Kingdom. They are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre, and are organised by the ''Evening Standa ...
** 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. Fo ...
** 1982 – '' "Master Harold"...and the Boys'' (winner)
* Lucille Lortel Awards
The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986. They are produced by the League of Off-Broadway Theatre ...
** 1992 – Outstanding Revival – ''Boesman and Lena
''Boesman and Lena'' is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characte ...
'' (winner)[
** 1996 – Outstanding Body of Work (winner)]
* The Audie Awards (Audio Publishers Association The Audio Publishers Association (APA) is the first and only not-for-profit trade organization of the audiobook industry in the United States. Its mission is to "advocate the common, collective business interests of audio publishers." Membership is ...
)
** 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
Lloyd George Richards (June 29, 1919 – June 29, 2006) was a Canadian-American theatre director, actor, and dean of the Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1991, and Yale University professor emeritus.
Biography
Richards was born in Toront ...
)
* National Orders Award (South Africa)
** 2005 – The Order of Ikhamanga
The Order of Ikhamanga is a South African honour. It was instituted on 30 November 2003 and is granted by the President of South Africa for achievements in arts, culture, literature, music, journalism, and sports (which were initially recognised b ...
in Silver – "for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre"
* American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...
's Golden Plate Award
** 2014 - Golden Plate Award
;Honorary degrees
* Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
, 1983
* Wittenberg University
Wittenberg University is a private liberal arts college in Springfield, Ohio. It has 1,326 full-time students representing 33 states and 9 foreign countries. Wittenberg University is associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
...
, 1992
* University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...
, 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
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, 1998
* University of Stellenbosch
Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant ...
, 2006
Reviews
* Fullerton, Ian (1980), review of ''Tsotsi'', in ''Cencrastus
''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...
'' 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
Oxford Playhouse is a theatre designed by Edward Maufe and F.G.M. Chancellor. It is situated in Beaumont Street, Oxford, opposite the Ashmolean Museum.
History
The Playhouse was founded as ''The Red Barn'' at 12 Woodstock Road, North Oxfor ...
and Farber Foundry: In Association with Mmabana Arts Foundation. Oxford Playhouse
Oxford Playhouse is a theatre designed by Edward Maufe and F.G.M. Chancellor. It is situated in Beaumont Street, Oxford, opposite the Ashmolean Museum.
History
The Playhouse was founded as ''The Red Barn'' at 12 Woodstock Road, North Oxfor ...
, 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
Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is a non-profit service organization headquartered in New York City that promotes professional non-profit theatre in the United States.
The organization also publishes ''American Theatre'' magazine and ''ARTSEA ...
, 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
''Tsotsi'' is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Gavin Hood and produced by Peter Fudakowski. It is an adaptation of the novel ''Tsotsi'' by Athol Fugard and is a South African/UK co-production. Set in the Alexandra slum in Johann ...
'' in Australia, 29 January 2006."]
*–––, and Serena Davies.
"My Week: Athol Fugard"
''The Telegraph
''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include:
Australia
* ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...
'', 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).]
* 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!
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 apart ...
and Selected Shorter Plays'', by Athol Fugard. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand
The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...
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
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
. Rpt. from ''TheatreForum'' 21 (Summer/Fall 2002). Retrieved 2 October 2008.
*McLuckie, Craig (Okanagan College
Okanagan College is a public, post-secondary institution with over 120 certificates, diplomas, degrees and programs including apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship trades programs. Its largest campus is located in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada ...
)
"Athol Fugard (1932–)"
''The Literary Encyclopedia
''The Literary Encyclopedia'' is an online reference work first published in October 2000. It was founded as an innovative project designed to bring the benefits of information technology to what at the time was still a largely conservative li ...
''. 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
The Fountain Theatre is a theatre in Los Angeles. Along with its programming of live theatre, it's also the foremost producer of flamenco on the West Coast.
History
The Fountain Theatre was founded in Los Angeles in 1990 by co-artistic direct ...
, Los Angeles, California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
.)
*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..html" ;"title="Theatre_Royal,_Bath.html" ;"title="heatre review of ''Victory'' at the Theatre Royal, Bath">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
Garland Science was a publishing group that specialized in developing textbooks in a wide range of life sciences subjects, including cell and molecular biology, immunology, protein chemistry, genetics, and bioinformatics. It was a subsidiary of th ...
, 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, and does not include this title.]
External links
"Athol Fugard"
Faculty profile. Department of Theatre and Dance. University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
. (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
In Greek mythology, Antigone ( ; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.Roman, L., & Roma ...
: An Episode in the Life of Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen (german: Hildegard von Bingen; la, Hildegardis Bingensis; 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher ...
", the Eugene M. Burke C.S.P. Lectureship on Religion and Society, at the University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
, 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
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...
"Athol Fugard Biography"
– "Athol Fugard", rpt. by bookrags.com ( Ambassadors Group, Inc.) from the ''Encyclopedia of World Biography''. ("2005–2006 Thomson Gale
Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007.
The company, formerly known as Gale Research and the Gale Gro ...
, a part of the Thomson Corporation
The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to fo ...
. 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
''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 AM ...
''. National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
. 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
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, is located in Manhattan, New York City, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side, between the Metro ...
{{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