Don Maclennan

Don Maclennan (9 December 1929 - 9 February 2009). Academic, poet, short-story writer, dramatist and actor.

Biography

Born in London but immigrated to South Africa in 1938.

Training

He was educated at the Universities of Witwatersrand and Edinburgh, and later became Professor of English at Rhodes University.

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

He has indicated that his close interest in theatre is a direct result of his association with Athol Fugard. Founder and close associate of the Ikhwezi Players and the author of eight plays, all of which have been performed, including the one-act plays Job Mava (co-written with Ikhwezi Players, perf 1972/3, pub 1980/81) and Celebration (perf. Rhodes University 1966). He wrote a one-act play The Third Degree (1967), A Winter Vacation, directed by Francois Swart for PACT at the Arena in 1970, The Voyage of the Santiago. In 1970 he also wrote In the Dawn Wind.

Other plays include In Memoriam Oskar Wolberheim, The Great Wall of China, The Wake, An Enquiry into the Voyage of the Santiago, performed by the survivors and Job Mava.

He adapted Maxim Gorky's My Childhood for the stage.

He directed and acted in The Mind Mirror staged i.a. at** and The Space, (1975)

Sources

Gosher, 1988.

A Winter Vacation programme notes, 1970.

Tucker, 1997.

Obituary by Peter Vale, Sunday Times, 22 February 2009.

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