The Train Driver

The Train Driver is a two-hander play by Athol Fugard (1932-).

The play

The play was inspired by a real-life incident in which a mother and her three children were killed by an oncoming train on the railway tracks between Philippi and Nyanga on the Cape Flats in December 2000. Fugard first wrote about the event as Fact and Fiction ('Pages from a notebook' and 'To whom it MUST concern') in his collection of stories in Karoo and other stories (published by David Philip, 2005).

The Train Driver is set in a graveyard outside Motherwell in the Eastern Cape in February 2001. It is about a man (Roelf Visagie, a train driver) in search of redemption.

The play is published by Faber and Faber, 2010; and in The Train Driver and other plays, Theatre Communications Group, 2012.

Performances

It was first produced in 2010 at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town, South Africa, directed by Athol Fugard with Sean Taylor and Owen Sejake. The production was designed by Saul Radomsky with lighting by Mannie Manim and sound by John Leonard.

The United States Premiere was presented at the Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles from 16 October 2010, to 30 January 2011, to rave reviews and the Hampstead Theatre, London where it previewed from 4 November 2010 and opened on 9 November 2010.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Train_Driver

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