Don Juan

Don Juan is the name of a fictional character about whom many literary and other works have been created.

The character

The original creation

The character Don Juan was created by Spanish playwright, Tirso de Molina[1], in his 1630 play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra ("The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest"), and the name of the character has since become common metaphor for a "womanizer".

There have been numerous works written and produced about the character and tapping into the notion of the "Don Juan" in society. (See for example Oscar Mandel's 1986 book The Theatre of Don Juan: A Collection of Plays and Views, 1630-1963, published by the University of Nebraska Press[2])

Below are a number of texts or adaptations done in South Afria, and bearing the title Don Juan, using Don Juan, or a character with Don Juan-like characteristics,as a character,.

Plays and films containing the name Don Juan, or using the character

Plays

International versions

Don Juan in Hell (George Bernard Shaw)

Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie (Max Frisch)

South African versions

Don Juan onder die Boere (Bartho Smit)

Don Juan or 'The Nightmare of Venus' (Chris Pretorius)

Don Gxubane Onner die Boere (Charles Fourie)

Films

Don Juan (1926) by Alan Crosland[3]. See below.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Don_Juan

Plays bearing the title Don Juan

Don Juan by Lord Byron

This was a satiric poem[4] by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womaniser but as someone easily seduced by women.

Translations and adaptations

Adapted for the stage by Roberta Durrant

Performances in South Africa

1980: Performed as a play at the Market Theatre Upstairs in June, directed by Roberta Durrant, with Vanessa Cooke, Nigel Daly, David Eppel, Janice Honeyman and Terry Norton. Lighting designs were by John White-Spunner, choreography by Dinah Eppel, and stage management by Margaret Ramsay.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Juan_(Byron)

Pat Schwartz, 1988: p. 235

Don Juan by Max Frisch

An Afrikaans version of Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie, a German comedy in five acts by Max Frisch[5] (1911-1991).

Translated into Afrikaans as Don Juan by Nerina Ferreira in 1974.

Performances of the Afrikaans version in South Africa

1975: Performed in Afrikaans as Don Juan by CAPAB Afrikaans Drama, directed by Mavis Taylor with starring Jana Cilliers in the Nico Malan Theatre in January.

Sources

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Juan_oder_Die_Liebe_zur_Geometrie

John Gassner and Edward Quinn. The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama 2002[6] P. 183.

Nico Malan Theatre Centre pamphlet.

Photograph by Paul Alberts, NELM.

Films bearing the title Don Juan

Don Juan (1926)

This is a 1926 film by Alan Crosland[7] =

First shown in South Africa in 192*, inter alia at the Orpheum Theatre, Johannesburg.

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