Chess in Yugoslavia

Chess in Yugoslavia is a 1961 play by Alan Paton (1903-1988).

Original text

Chess in Yugoslavia is an entertaining one-act play that pokes satirical fun at the corrupt and absurd machinations of apartheid bureaucracy. It gives us a good indication of Paton‟s skills as a politically engaged playwright. The plot concerns three chess players, an Indian, an African and a white man, who endure Kafkaesque frustrations when applying for a passport to attend a chess tournament in Yugoslavia. The three characters' names, namely Peter Boovalingham, Jordan Ubani and Leo Kupansky are thinly veiled references to three of Paton‟s close friends and fellow Liberal Party stalwarts, namely Pat Poovalingham, Jordan Ngubane and Leo Kuper.

Performance history in South Africa

The play was presented in 1961, possibly by Pat Poovalingham, Jordan Ngubane, Leo Kuper as their namesakes in the play, and Paton casting himself in the central role of the Investigator.

Sources

Hermann Wittenberg. 2007. Alan Paton’s writing for the stage: towards a non-racial South African theatre. South African Theatre Journal, 1: 307-327.

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