Geraldine Aron

(1941-) Dramatist, poet, copywriter.

Biography

Born in Galway, the Republic of Ireland, but came to South Arica as a young married woman and lived in Cape Town between 1967 and 1986, where she continued her career in advertising by managing a freelance copy bureau. During this time she became a naturalized South African citizen, and her initial dramatic output was produced while resident in South Africa. She returned to England in 1987.

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

For the stage

She began her career as playwright at the Space Theatre, Cape Town, when her short, poignant verse dialogue Bar and Ger (1975) was successfully staged there with Yvonne Bryceland and Wilson Dunster (1978). Most of her earlier works were performed at The Space Theatre, and after the closing of The Space she continued to write works for CAPAB and other companies, till her return to England in 1987, where she continued her career.

Works produced during her South African period include Bar and Ger (1975), Mr. McConkey’s Suitcase, Mickey Kannis Caught my Eye, Joggers and A Galway Girl(1979) to two full-length plays (Spider and The Spare Room) and four monologues (On the Blue Train – Constantia Gable, On the Blue Train – Joe Harris, On the Blue Train – Kathy, The Shrinking of Alby Chapman), Brenda (1983), and the popular children’s play Why Strelitzias Can’t Fly

While at The Space she also collaborated with others people, writing Zombie, based on a storyline conceived by Brian Astbury and helping to write The Disguise of the Ashes that arose out of the Karnaval at Scarborough to prove that Leonardo was Right – an investigation of guilt and The Final Sting of the Dying Wasp.

Many of her South African plays have been published, eleven collected in her own collection entitled Seven Plays and Four Monologues (David Philip, 1985), while some plays have appeared in other collections.

In 1987 she returned to Ireland, and has continued writing plays there. Her work since includes Same Old Moon, Druid Theatre, Galway, Ireland, 1984; The Stanley Parkers, Druid Theatre, Galway, Ireland, 1990; The Donahue Sisters, Druid Theatre, Galway, Ireland, 1990; and My Brilliant Divorce, Town Hall Theatre, Galway, Ireland, 2001 and the Apollo Theatre in London, 2004