Garalt MacLiam

Garalt MacLiam (1937-2014) was a South African playwright, director, actor, author and theatre critic.

His name often found wrongly cited in academic publications as Geralt MacLiam.

Biography

He was born in Ireland but later settled in South Africa, where he .

president of the South African Union of Journalists (SAUJ) in the 1990's and Garalt is also the author of a number of short stories and novels, many of which he never bothered to get published. His joy was in the writing of them, and in making the characters come alive. His words will live on in Just Down the Road, A Sort of Love Story and Thursday Night is Different..

He passed away

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

He loved theatre, having acted in Ireland as well as South Africa, and went on to become a well-known and respected theatre critic for The Star Tonight for many years. Besides his reviews, he published many articles and interviews, and wrote a most useful overview of the state of South African theatre in the late 1970s.

He wrote several plays, which he also directed. Mentioned among them are One Friday in Jerusalem (staged Upstairs at The Market in 1976, pribably directed by him, for the text is elsewhere credited to Phillip de Bruyn), The Indian Rope Trick, a stage adaptation of Gogol's Diary of a Madman (with Garalt performing it in its first production) and his final play, Meredith’s Money, staged at Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre in 2006.

He was also a playwright, adaptor and director. His works include The Indian Rope Trick and Diary of a Madman (adapted by MacLiam from Gogol’s short story), and in which he performed in its first production.

He directed One Friday in Jerusalem, staged Upstairs at the Market in 1976 and wrote and directed Meredith's Money, staged at the Montecasino Theatre in 2005.

Sources

Tucker, 1997.

The Star, 21 October 2014[1]

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