Try for White
Try for White is a 1959 play by Basil Warner. A play about miscegenation and the effects of this on families. The text is unpublished and housed with NELM in Grahamstown.
An edited version of the text (editors Petrus du Preez and Edwin Hees), based on the prompt text belonging to stage manager Paddy Canavan, was published in the South African Theatre Journal, 17:1, 284-371, 2003.
Contents
The original text
Translations and adaptations
On 18 April 1965 the BBC transmitted a filmed version of the play on BBC2 in a television drama anthology series called Theatre 625 [1]. The film was produced by Cedric Messina, directed by Alan Gibson [2] and the cast included: Yootha Joyce, Joss Ackland, Gary Bond, Zoe Randall, Marda Vanne, Nan Munro and Maxine Holden.
The play was used as the basis for the screenplay by Emil Nofal of Katrina (1969), the controversial Afrikaans feature film, directed by Jans Rautenbach.
Performance history in South Africa
1959: First performed by the Cockpit Players at the Hofmeyr Theatre in Cape Town on January 17, 1959. In the cast: Jane Fenn, Walter Glennie, Marjorie Gordon, Nigel Hawthorne, Heather Lloyd-Jones, Michael McGovern, Minna Millsten, Zoë Randall, Michael Turner. It was directed by Leonard Schach and decor by Bruce Palmer. This production opened at the Pretoria Opera House in February 1959 before moving to the Intimate Theatre for the remainder of their highly successful run. It also starred Nigel Hawthorne, Marjorie Gordon, Michael Turner. Joyce Grant and Fiona Fraser replaced Minna Millsten and Heather Lloyd-Jones respectively, from the Cape Town cast.
1960: Staged by the Cockpit Players in the Alhambra Theatre in Durban in July/August, directed by Leonard Schach, with Joyce Bradley (Mrs Jane Matthews), Paddy Canavan (Mrs Wilson), Felicity Bosman (Lisa Samuels), Walter Glennie (Hockey Jagger), Stanley Walsh (Robert Matthews), Jane Fenn (Mrs Adams), Eveline Garratt (Muriel Jordan), Paul Desmond (various) and Jan Lindique (various). Settings and costumes by Bruce Palmer.
Sources
Text of Try for White, South African Theatre Journal,
Inskip, 1977. p 122
Leonard Schach Cockpit Players theatre programme, 1959/60.
Tucker, 1997. 121-2.
Petru & Carel Trichardt theatre programme collection.
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