Athol Fugard – författare

Three plays that solidified Athol Fugard''s indelible mark on theatre.

The brothers of Blood Knot—one dark-skinned, one light—betray their dreams of a better future with the impossible wish of passing for white. In Hello and Goodbye, a poor white brother and sister churn through their once-promising past to comprehend their bleak present. Boseman and Lena, a black husband and wife, trudge through a severe and unforgiving landscape, discovering strength and recovering devotion through an encounter with a mysterious old African.

These three Port Elizabeth plays, which established South African playwright Athol Fugard''s international reputation over 60 years ago, examine with passion and grace close family relationships strained almost unendurably by the harshest of economic and political conditions.

The Captain’s Tiger provides a glimpse of an author’s beginnings, that rare chance to witness the embryonic start of a great man’s life with all the shadows and light so much part of the writer’s landscape. Fugard catches us unawares in a story that is not all that it seems—just like life. —Pretoria News

In The Captain’s Tiger, Athol Fugard sets out as a young seafarer and writer to begin The Great Novel—the exciting tales of his mother, a young Afrikaner, and her escape from small-town life. But what he discovers on his travels is that the secret to great writing comes from the desperate need to tell the truth, and in turn he finds his voice as an author.

Subtitled a "Memoir for the Stage," the play is told both from the point of view of the twenty-year-old author who was the captain’s tiger—a glorified personal servant to the ship’s captain—and the author as his current-day self. This is a fascinating voyage, a writer’s pilgrimage, a whole painful process we are privy to. We witness his coming of age through author monologues, recreations of onboard conversations, letters written to his mother, imagined discourse, and dreams. Fugard has created a personal dramatic structure moving from present to past, from reality to reverie. One of the author’s most imaginative works, Fugard has created a world with imagery that is visual, visceral and poetic.

The story of the one great artist''s exit from the stage just as another was beginning his career in the theater.

In Exits and Entrances, Fugard details his brief yet formative experience with mentor André Huguenet, considered the finest classical actor of their native South Africa. The play opens in 1961, the year South Africa declared its independence from the British Commonwealth, as well as the year of Huguenet''s death. As Fugard''s playwright character learns of his mentor''s passing, he reminisces about their first collaboration: a production of Oedipus Rex in 1956. Throughout the run of this 1956 production and in the years that follow, Huguenet and Fugard grow close and offer each other insights on life, writing, and art.

Fugard masterfully observes political realities through the magnified lens of deep personal relationships. —Misha Berson, The Seattle Times

Athol Fugard''s uncanny ability to capture the nuances of intense interpersonal relationships ultimately illuminates issues of major social and political importance. In A Lesson from Aloes, he depicts the reunion of Piet Bezuidenhout, an anti-apartheid Afrikaner and possible informant, and Steve Daniels, a Black activist, on the eve of Steve''s departure from South Africa to exile in England. Prodded by Piet''s nervous wife, they confront each other and the events which led to their sudden falling-out years ago. Fugard''s poetic dialogue heightens the raw emotion of the characters, leaving readers and playgoers deeply moved by the encounter.