Andrew Buckland

Andrew Buckland (1954-). Stage and film actor, mime, playwright and drama teacher.

Biography

Born Andrew Frederick Buckland on 4 February 1954 in Zimbabwe, where he also completed his schooling, before attending the Rhodes University Drama Department, graduating in 1979 with a BA Honours in Drama.

He became a junior lecturer at Rhodes, then joined PACT (1980-1984) as actor. In 1992 Buckland became a member of the First Physical Theatre Company and a lecturer in the Drama Department at Rhodes University. (Later senior lecturer and finally professor.)

He is married to actress and director Janet Buckland (néé Janet Connor) and they have had three sons: Matthew, Daniel (also an actor) and Luke.

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

Besides his influential role as teacher and academic, Buckland has been a major presence in South Africa as a playwright, performer and theatre-maker

As an actor

His numerous stage performances as actor in plays by other writers include:

For CAPAB:

Romeo and Juliet,

For Pieter Toerien:

The Runner Stumbles,

At Maynardville: Twelfth Night (1978).

The National Arts Festival: Hamlet (2022)

For PACT: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Importance of Being Earnest (1982), Savages, Tom Jones, Bloed in die Strate (by Harry Kalmer), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1984).Monday After the Miracle, Shrivings,

For the Market Theatre: David Mamet's Speed the Plow (1990), A Doll's House (1990),

the ghost of Christmas Present in Scrooge (Baxter Theatre, 2013)

For Cirque du Soleil: Love (2009) [1] .

As a playwright/solo performer

In 1987 he and Janet Buckland founded Mouthpeace Theatre in Johannesburg (moving it to Grahamstown in 1992), working closely with their friends Lionel Newton, and director Lara Foot-Newton.

Andrew gradually began to create his own theatre works, with a distinctive style of theatre, utilizing the techniques of physical theatre and mime to relate his poetic fantasies. These inlude:

The Mime, Stillborn, Matches, Touchstones (1984),

Pas de Deux, which he had co-written with Soli Philander (1986)

the much-admired and multiple award-winning The Ugly Noonoo (aka The Investigation of an Ugly Noo Noo, 1988/1991), The Ugly Noo Noo: A Trilogy, (1989),
Between the Teeth (1990)
Bloodstream (with Lionel Newton - 1992)
Dead Slugs & Strawberries(1994)
Unplucked (1994)
Feedback (also with Newton, 1995)
Noisy Walk (1996)
The Water Juggler (1998)
The Well Being (1999)
Laugh the Buffalo (2013)
Plunge (devised for Ubom!, 2003)
Crazy in Love (co-written with Rob Murray and Liezl de Kock, 2014),
Unruly (co-written with Neil Coppen and Dylan McGarry, 2024)

Film and TV work

He has appeared in a number of films, among them:

Hamlet (SABC TV, 1983), Shotdown, The Schoolmaster, Dirty Games, The Good Fascist and Quest for Love.

As a director:

His directorial work includes:

1991: Take Two (Market Theatre)

1993: The Good Person of Szechwan (Rhodes University Drama Department)

1998: The Love of the Nightingale (with Dion van Niekerk, Rhodes University Drama Department)

2002: The Government Inspector (Rhodes University Drama Department)

2003: The Kitchen (Rhodes University Drama Department)

2005: Hotel Paradiso (Rhodes University Drama Department)

2008: The Man Who (Rhodes University Drama Department)

Awards, etc

Awards include the Standard Bank Young Artist Awards for Drama for Pas de Deux (1986), The Scotsman Fringe Award (Edinburgh Festival - 1995) for Feedback and several Vita Awards and the Fleur du Cap Award for Best New Indigenous Script (1989).