Robert Mohr

Robert Wilhelm Mohr (1925-1984). Actor, dramatist, innovative director and enormously influential lecturer and head of the University of Cape Town Drama Department.

Biography

Born Robert Wilhelm Mohr in 1925,

He studied speech and drama under Joyce Burch, Marguerite de Villiers and Hermione Roux at the University of Stellenbosch’s Conservatoire of Music, and was appointed a speech teacher at the Conservatoire in 1948, taking over from Hermione Roux to head the speech and drama course. He went on to developed this into a fully fledged BA course, and also directed a number of major plays for the University. At the same time he continued doing freelance work as actor and director for the National Theatre Organisation and other companies.

In 1960 he left Stellenbosch to become a lecturer at the Department of Speech and Drama, University of Cape Town. Towards the end of 1964 Professor Corey of Shreveport University in Louisiana arrived in Cape Town with his traveling student company playing The Book of Job. At the same time Robert Mohr put on a production called J.B. which also dealt with Job. Inskip gave Corey a copy of Flora Stohr’s Behind the Yellow Door and he arranged that Robert Mohr should go to the University of Shreveport, Louisiana to produce it. This was done in 1966 with Corey’s students.

Mohr was appointed head of the department in 1971, remaining there till his retirement in 198*, but maintaining his profile as one of the leading theatre directors in the country.

He died in 1984.

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

As teacher and mentor

His influence as teacher was enormous and his graduate students have made their mark in all facets of the industry. As a free-lance professional writer and director Mohr likewise had a major influence on South African theatre, his interest in Eastern theatre and the work of Chekhov in particular influencing many directors in the heyday of the big state funded companies.

Besides his formal teaching, he also he worked with many student, amateur, semi-professional and professioal companies, offering courses and directing. In June 1971 he conducted the first Drama Course for the Department of Coloured Affairs in Bellville South. His community theatre directing endeavours included work with the EOAN Group (e.g. Behind the Yellow Door by Flora Stohr, at the Little Theatre in 1963 and in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1966).

As actor

He started out his theatrical career as a talented bilingual (Afrikaans and English) actor, appearing in numerous productions for NTO and for the Performing Arts Councils. He appeared in the Pirandello plays Die Narrekap, Sitroene uit Sicilië in the late 1940s.

In 1949 he had a role in The Man of Destiny and in 1951 in Die Koopman van Venesië.

Romeo en Jeanette (NTO 1960).

In 1963 he had a role in a Little Theatre Players production of Uncle Vanya.

As director/producer

Mohr was a prolific director. Besides the formal stage plays, he also directed works for opera, film and radio, and besides his work in South Africa, he was often invited to countries like Canada, the USA and Great Britain to serve as a guest director. For example he had done Flora Stohr’s play, Behind the Yellow Door, in South Africa, and was then invited to direct it at The University of Shreveport in Louisiana in 1966. Due to its success he was invited back again in 1968 to direct Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, a production for which for which he received a special award.

Some of the productions he directed include:

1951: The Boy With A Cart (the first theatre-in-the-round production in South Africa, University of Stellenbosch)

1956: Vergelegen (K.A.T.)

1957: Hamlet (University of Stellenbosch)

1958: Skrikkeljaar (NTO)

1958: Mother Courage and her Children (University of Stellenbosch)

1959: Our Town/Ons Dorp (University of Stellenbosch's Arena '59)

1960: Julius Caesar

1962: Die Hemelbed

1963: Behind the Yellow Door (EOAN Group)

1964: Rashomon (CAPAB)

1965: Charley se Tante (CAPAB)

1965: Waiting for Godot UCT

1965: Pa, Maak vir my 'n Vlieër Pa

1965: Barry

1967: Cook's Tour Special (UCT Drama Department)

1967: Seppuku (UCT Drama Department)

1967: Uit Die Oude Doos

1967: Die Paradysboot (PACT)

1967: Oom Wanja (PACT)

1967: Ons Hou Konsert (CAPAB)

1968/1969: Richard III (CAPAB)

1969: Hamlet (UCT Drama Department)

1969: Cyrano de Bergerac (CAPAB)

1969: Black Comedy

1969: King Lear (PACT)

1970: The Cherry Orchard (CAPAB)

1970: Drie Susters (PACT)

1972: You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (UCT Drama Department)

1973: Die Effek van Gammastrale op Goudgeel Afrikaners (CAPAB)

1973: Hamlet (CAPAB, PACOFS)

1974: Enemy! (PACT)

1974: Elizabeth I (PACT)

1975: The Tempest (PACT)

1976: Dracula (CAPAB)

1977: As You Like It (UCT Drama Department)

1978: Hamlet (PACT)

1978: Elizabeth I (UCT Drama Department)

1979: Die Kersietuin (PACT)

1980: Donkerwerk is Konkelwerk (CAPAB)

1980: Rashomon (PACT)

1981: A Midsummer Night's Dream (PACT, for the opening season of the Pretoria State Theatre).

1982: Uncle Vanya (Baxter Theatre)

1983: Ons Hou Konsert II (CAPAB)

1984: At the time of his death he was directing a production of The Nuns at the Little Theatre in Cape Town.

Double Trouble, The Sport of my Mad Mother, It's a Boy!, Do you know the Milky Way?, Ritual 2378, 'Charley se Tante (circa 1965), Cockpit, date?: Opdrifsels

Among his major professional works were original texts for Dracula (19**), The Trials of St Joan (19**) and the hugely popular compilations of Melt Brink works – and Ons Hou Weer Konsert ("We have another concert" - 19**).

Other productions include J.B., Hadrian the Seventh, Pleasure and Repentance, The Government Inspector, The Maids (1964), Our Town/Ons Dorp, Mr Gotz's Elite Cafe, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-moon Marigolds, The Fantasticks, The Good Soldier Svejk, El Grande de Coca Cola, Getting Out, Die Fisici, Verkiesing sonder politiek!, Brecht on Brecht, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Hole, Offending the Audience, Street Scene, Talking Deafman, The Philanthropist, The Grass Harp, Barnstable, Kinkels innie Kabel, The Lesson (he also had a part), La Mandragola (1963), The Merchant of Venice, Rashomon, Salad Days, The Sport of My Mad Mother, Tartuffe, Drie Susters,

As translator, writer

He translated a number of plays into Afrikaans, including:

• Our Town/Ons Dorp is an adaptation by Robert Mohr in a bilingual version (English and Afrikaans) of Our Town (1938) by Thornton Wilder. Mohr produced the adapted play in 1959 for the University of Stellenbosch's Arena '59.
• Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (directed by Mohr for CAPAB 1964, PACT 1980).
• Charley's Aunt as Charley se Tante (a CAPAB production directed by him, 1965).
• Chekov's Three Sisters as Drie Susters, produced by PACT in 1970 under Mohr's direction.
• The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel as Die Effek van Gammastrale op Goudgeel Afrikaners was staged at the Little Theatre in 1973.
• Chekov's The Cherry Orchard as Die Kersietuin (PACT 1979).
• Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer as Donkerwerk is Konkelwerk (CAPAB 1980).
• He translated English composer Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas (date unknown).
• Chekov's The Seagull as Die Seemeeu (date unknown).

He also translated works into English, including:

• He also translated Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan der Weise into English as Nathan the Wise, (script held by NELM: [Collection: DALRO]: 2001. 41. 188).
• He did adaptations of plays such as the Japanese Chūshingura [1].

He devised/compiled Ons Hou Konsert (1967) and Ons Hou Konsert II (1983) from the writings of Melt Brink.

Awards, etc.

Drie Blare Award for Best Director for his direction of Richard III in Afrikaans and The Good Soldier Schweik for the year 1968. (Source: Teater SA, 1(3), 1969).

He was awarded an Honorary Pendant ("Erepennning") for his contribution to theatre by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns in 19**.

Sources

Tucker, 1997.

Inskip, Donald P., 1972.

Various entries in the NELM catalogue.

New Theatre Quarterly 75: Volume 19, Part 3 (Dec 2003) edited by Simon Trussler, Clive Barker[2]

Greyvenstein, Walter 1988. The history and development of children's theatre in English in South Africa. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Johannesburg: Rand Afrikaans University.

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