Andrew Buckland

Andrew Buckland (1954-). Stage and film actor, mime, playwright and drama teacher.

Biography

Born Andrew Frederick Buckland on 4 February 1954 in Zimbabwe, where he also completed his schooling, before attending the Rhodes University Drama Department, graduating in 1979 with a BA Honours in Drama.

He became a junior lecturer at Rhodes, then joined PACT (1980-1984) as actor. In 1992 Buckland became a member of the First Physical Theatre Company and a lecturer in the Drama Department at Rhodes University. (Later senior lecturer and finally professor.)

He is married to actress and director Janet Buckland (néé Janet Connor) and they have had three sons: Matthew, Daniel (also an actor) and Luke.

In 2009, he appeared in Cirque du Soleil's acclaimed Las Vegas production, Love.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Besides his influential role as teacher and academic, Buckland has been a major presence in South Africa as a playwright, performer and theatre-maker

As an actor

His numerous stage performances as actor in plays by other writers include:

Twelfth Night (Maynardville, 1978), Romeo and Juliet (CAPAB, 1980), The Importance of Being Earnest (PACT, 1982), Savages (PACT, 1982), Shrivings (PACT, 1982), Monday After the Miracle (PACT, 1982), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (PACT, 1982?), Tom Jones (PACT, 1983), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (PACT, 1984), Bloed in die Strate (PACT, 1984), The Runner Stumbles (Pieter Toerien, 1985), Speed the Plow (Market Theatre, 1990), A Doll's House (Market Theatre, 1990), Scrooge (Baxter Theatre, 2013), Hamlet (National Arts Festival, 2022).

As a playwright/solo performer

In 1987 he and Janet Buckland founded Mouthpeace Theatre in Johannesburg (moving it to Grahamstown in 1992), working closely with their friends Lionel Newton, and director Lara Foot-Newton.

Andrew gradually began to create his own theatre works, with a distinctive style of theatre, utilizing the techniques of physical theatre and mime to relate his poetic fantasies. These inlude:

The Mime (dates unknown)
Matches (dates unknown)
Stillborn (1983)
Touchstones (1984)
Pas de Deux (co-written with Soli Philander, (1986)
The Ugly Noonoo (1988)
Between the Teeth (1990)
Bloodstream (1992)
Dead Slugs & Strawberries (1994)
Unplucked (1994)
Feedback (1995)
Noisy Walk (1996)
The Water Juggler (1998)
The Well Being (1999)
Laugh the Buffalo (2013)
Plunge (devised for Ubom!, 2003)
Crazy in Love (co-written with Rob Murray and Liezl de Kock, 2014)
Unruly (co-written with Neil Coppen and Dylan McGarry, 2024)

Film and TV work

He has appeared in a number of films, among them:

Hamlet (SABC TV, 1983), Shotdown, The Schoolmaster, Dirty Games, The Good Fascist and Quest for Love.

As a director:

His directorial work includes:

1991: Take Two (Market Theatre)

1993: The Good Person of Szechwan (Rhodes University Drama Department)

1998: The Love of the Nightingale (with Dion van Niekerk, Rhodes University Drama Department)

2002: The Government Inspector (Rhodes University Drama Department)

2003: The Kitchen (Rhodes University Drama Department)

2005: Hotel Paradiso (Rhodes University Drama Department)

2008: The Man Who (Rhodes University Drama Department)

Awards, etc

Awards include the Standard Bank Young Artist Awards for Drama for Pas de Deux (1986), The Scotsman Fringe Award (Edinburgh Festival - 1995) for Feedback and several Vita Awards and the Fleur du Cap Award for Best New Indigenous Script (1989).