Difference between revisions of "Fordsburg’s Finest"
Line 12: | Line 12: | ||
== Sources == | == Sources == | ||
+ | Go to [[South African Theatre/Bibliography|ESAT Bibliography]] | ||
− | + | [Van Heerden (2008)][http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.sun.ac.za%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F10019.1%2F1443%2Fvanheerden_theatre_2008.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1&ei=_egBU77CNYWJhQeE5oCADQ&usg=AFQjCNEWnD1BzeLnFmOV2tvyGLoMyNeT6Q&bvm=bv.61535280,d.Yms] | |
== Return to == | == Return to == |
Revision as of 12:11, 24 February 2014
by Paul Slabolepszy (1997). A play about a young expatriate black woman who returns to Johannesburg to find her old home occupied by a retired white policeman. Unpublished.
Contents
Subject
The play is about reconciliation: the daughter of a black South African musician was taken by her parents to New York as an infant in the fifties. She lost them both at a young age, grew up to become a single, self-assured African-American and returns four decades later on a pilgrimage to her birthplace in Fordsburg, Johannesburg to find her roots. She finds the site of the house where she was born and it is now a rundown used car sales lot owned and occupied by a 50-year old Afrikaner ex-policeman whose son died in the border war, whose wife left him, and who has learnt to hide his pain behind the mask of a used car salesman. The encounter between these two damaged individuals provides the situation for painful self-discovery, for an exploration of the tensions existing in the new South African condition, and ultimately it leads to a kind of reconciliation brought about by a mutual recognition of suffering. “The play is about two people who, having long walked on firm ground, now find that they cannot take its firmness for granted. The old blacks and whites won't do anymore. The old baggage and clutter have to go” (Greig, 1998c). [Van Heerden (2008)][1] p.106
Performance history in South Africa
Premièred in 1998 at the Market Theatre in February 1998 with Marius Weyers, African-American actress Dorcas Johnson and Paul Slabolepszy, directed by Lara Foot-Newton.
Translations and adaptations
Sources
Go to ESAT Bibliography
[Van Heerden (2008)][2]
Return to
Return to ESAT Templates
Return to B in Plays I Original SA Plays
Return to B in Plays II Foreign Plays
Return to B in Plays III Collections
Return to B in Plays IV: Festivals and Pageants
Return to South_African_Theatre/Plays
Return to The ESAT Entries
Return to Main Page