Dimetos

A play by Athol Fugard.

The original text

a “personal myth” inspired by the notebooks of French humanist writer Albert Camus and it’s about the destructive forces of human passion. Deeply metaphoric play about duty and creativity, it is based on a concept taken from the Notebooks of Albert Camus, and presented as the story of the relationship between a civil engineer and his niece.

Commissioned for the 1975 Edinburgh FestivalEdinburgh Festival.

First published in Dimetos, and, Two early plays by Athol Fugard. Oxford University Press, 1977. The play opened at the Edinburgh Festival on 27 August 1975.

Performance history in South Africa

1975: The first production directed and designed by Fugard, with Carel Trichardt (Dimetos, an engineer), Vanessa Cooke (Lydia, his niece), Yvonne Bryceland (Sophia, their housekeeper) and Wilson Dunster (Danilo, a young man from the city). Lighting and stage management by Dimitri Nicolas-Fanourakis. The production first ran at The Space (Cape Town) during final rehearsals, while Fugard still changed, wrote and re-wrote much of it. The official opening was at the Edinburgh Festival in 1975, after which it rerurned to play at **

1981: Presented by Minotaurus at the People's Space directed by Dieter Reible, staged by Raimond Schoop, opening 21 December 1981 starring Marius Weyers(Dimetos), Trix Pienaar (Sophia), Mitzi Booysen (Lydia) and Blaise Koch (Danilo).

1982: A Market Theatre production of Dimetos directed by Dieter Reible opened 19 April 1982 Upstairs at the Market. (Same production?)

International productions

1976: {Performed in London in 1976, directed by Fugard with Paul Scofield as Dimetos.

2009: Performed at the Donmar Warehouse, London, with Jonathan Pryce and Holliday Grainger in the lead.

Sources

Dimetos theatre programmes 1975 and 1981

Newspaper reviews of the Church Hill Theatre/ Edinburgh Festival production of Dimetos - 1975 (NELM)

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/mar/26/dimetos-donmar-warehouse-london

http://www.iainfisher.com/fugard/athol-fugard-plays-exile.html

www.keithsagar.co.uk/downloads/dimetos.doc

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