Difference between revisions of "Rosalie van der Gucht"
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She retired from UCT in 1971, after which she concentrated on freelance professional directing. During this period she directed all Chekov’s major works for [[CAPAB]] and [[PACOFS]]. | She retired from UCT in 1971, after which she concentrated on freelance professional directing. During this period she directed all Chekov’s major works for [[CAPAB]] and [[PACOFS]]. | ||
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==Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance== | ==Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance== | ||
Revision as of 10:16, 15 April 2016
VAN DER GUCHT, Rosalie (1907/8-1985) Hugely popular and influential speech teacher, lecturer and director who made an enormous contribution to South African theatre in the post- World War II period.
Contents
Biography
Born in Britain, Van der Gucht moved to South Africa in 1939 and took up a position at the Grahamstown Training College where she started a career in speech and drama education. In 1942 she was offered a position as assistant in speech training at the University of Cape Town (UCT), which she accepted. She soon found herself directing many performances. In 1946 she was promoted to head of the Speech and Drama Department at UCT, where she continued to inspire and lead people. She proposed changes in the department, such as a Performer’s Diploma and a chair for drama.
Aside from teaching, Van der Gucht also began other projects, including Theatre for Youth in Cape Town in 1956.
She retired in 1971 and continued directing and travelling until her death in 1985.
trained at **, she came to South Africa as part of a teacher exchange programme between Britain and South Africa in the 1940s.
She died in 1985.
Youth
Training
She had her training at the Grahamstown Training College in 1940.
Career
In 1942 she was appointed as an assistant to Ruth Peffers who founded the Speech and Drama Department at UCT. Her drama teaching was directly related to the syllabus and linked all the other arts. Similar projects were tackled by her in conjunction with George Feldsman, a Coloured headmaster at a little school in Chapel Steet. She was the driving force behind entertainment for children in the Cape.
In 1946 she became head of the UCT's Department of Speech and Drama, a role she fulfilled till 1971, when she was succeeded by Robert Mohr. In 19* she was made professor.**
In the early 1950s she was invited to establish a branch of Evans and Tilley's Children's Theatre Incorporated in Cape Town. Van der Gucht however differed in policy from her northern colleagues, for she wanted to harness the educational possibilities to those of entertainment, promoting simplicity of presentation and participation by the audience, rather than passive observation of spectacle. Her productions (e.g. Arena Entertainment, Let's Make an Opera and Brian Way's Pinocchio, adapted by Gretel Mills) all made use of informal arena-style staging and audience participation which influenced the action of the play. These radically different ideas about the nature and practice of theatre for young audiences and complications in funding the Cape Town branch caused problems and led Van der Gucht to form an independent Organisation called Theatre for Youth in 1956, which utilized her students at the University of Cape Town rather than professional performers.
She retired from UCT in 1971, after which she concentrated on freelance professional directing. During this period she directed all Chekov’s major works for CAPAB and PACOFS.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
During her time at UCT she directed many plays at the Little Theatre and for other groups ranging from Greek tragedy to contemporary works.
She made her debut as an actress at the Little Theatre in Costa Couvara’s 1942 production of Arsenic and Old Lace with Geraldine Jordi. This production played to the highest accolades and won a sterling review in Ivor Jones’s column in the Cape Argus. She starred as Amanda in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams which was staged at the Little Theatre by Leonard Schach in 1948. Cast also included Rosemary Kirkcaldy.
In 1974 she directed Three's Company at The Space. She directed Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit for PACT in 1977.
For the Baxter Theatre she directed Delicate Balance, Beecham and The Importance of Being Oscar. She directed Aleksei Arbuzov’s Old-World starring Zoë Randall and John Carson at the Leonard Rayne Theatre in 1984.
Awards, etc
In 1970 she won the Three Leaf Award for her productions of Three Sisters and The Crucible.
Sources
The Importance of Being Oscar programme notes, 1984.
See: Inskip 1972, Astbury 1979. Morris 1989, De Beer 1995, Tucker, 1997.
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