The Cell

There are two South African plays by this name.

= The Cell, by Athol Fugard. =

The play
An early one-act play about black prisoners in a Cape Town prison. Written in Cape Town c. 1955-56, performed by the Circle Players in the Labia Theatre, Cape Town in 1956. Directed by Sheila Fugard, with Sheila Fugard, Athol Fugard, Erica Rogers, and a chorus of three men. Fugard later destroyed the manuscript.

The play
A psycho-drama in which a prison-cell, and the ideological clashes of its inmates, become a microcosmic symbol for South Africa. First performed ***. Published in Five African Plays (ed Cosmo Pieterse, Heinemann, 1972.