Athol Fugard

Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard (1932- ) is an internationally-renowned South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director.

Highly regarded nationally and internationally, Fugard was referred to as 'the greatest active playwright' writing in English in the 1980s, and was voted one of the top 100 playwrights of the 20th century.

An influential figure in South African theatre for more than 50 years, Fugard created serious and authentic theatre in South Africa with plays that trace the history of the country from the early days of apartheid to the years following the liberation and inspired a number of other writers, directors and performers.

He was also involved in the creation of an alternative infrastructure for South African theatre through his involvement with a range of companies and theatre venues, including the Space Theatre, the Serpent Players, The Rehearsal Room at Dorkay House, the Market Theatre, the Baxter Theatre and the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town.

Biography

Born Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard in Middelburg, Great Karoo, Cape Province, South Africa, on 11 June 1932. His mother (Elizabeth Magdalena Katerina Potgieter) was an Afrikaner and his father (Harold David Lanigan Fugard) was primarily of English, Huguenot, and Irish ancestry. In 1935, his family moved to Port Elizabeth where Fugard’s mother ran the Jubilee Boarding House and later (in 1942) the St George’s Park Tea Room (the setting and inspiration for his autobiographical play "Master Harold" ... and the boys). Fugard's father was a pianist and an alcoholic who was crippled in an accident and who died when Fugard was 29.

In 1956, he married actress and novelist Sheila Meiring (Sheila Fugard), and in 1961 his only daughter, Lisa Fugard, was born, and in 2003 his grandson, Gavyn. Fugard and Meiring divorced in 2015.

In 2016, he married academic and playwright Paula Fourie.

Education

Fugard attended the Marist Brothers College and the Albert Jackson Primary School. From 1946 to 1950, Fugard attended secondary school at Port Elizabeth Technical College, and from 1951 to 1953 the University of Cape Town (studying philosophy, anthropology, sociology and French). He has always been an avid reader, and although his first scholarship was for motor mechanics, his true avocation was for philosophy and literature (the works of Faulkner and the existentialists, particularly Camus). Before finishing his degree, Fugard left the university to hitchhike up Africa with Perseus Adams. He ended up sailing around the world on a tramp steamer (the S.S. Graigaur) for ten months, returning to South Africa in 1954. While travelling, he worked on a novel, later abandoned (thrown into the sea at Fiji, and referred to in The Captain's Tiger).

Port Elizabeth and Cape Town (1955-1957)

At first Fugard wrote freelance articles for the Evening Post in Port Elizabeth, then worked for the SABC as reporter in Port Elizabeth and later in Seapoint (1955-1957), where he met the actress Sheila Meiring, who introduced him to theatre as a medium in Cape Town. He did some acting, playing Laius in André Huguenet's production of Oedipus Rex (1956) for example, and began his career as playwright by writing for the Circle Players, a group which he and Sheila had started. Among the works were The Cell and Klaas and the Devil, one-act plays that he later destroyed.

Johannesburg (1958-1959)

In 1958, the Fugards moved to Johannesburg, where he worked as a clerk in the Fordsburg Native Commissioner’s Court - pass-law offenders were tried this court. He left that job and became a stage manager for the National Theatre Organisation's Kamertoneel in 1958, working on the first production of N.P. van Wyk Louw's Germanicus, James Ambrose Brown's Seven against the Sun, Bartho Smit's Moeder Hanna and other plays. The Belgian director Tone Brulin was among those he met at the time and took to see the first production of his play No-Good Friday which he was doing with the Africa Theatre Workshop (which the Fugards had started) in Sophiatown. At this time, Fugard had met a remarkable group of artists and writers, including Can Temba, Lewis Nkosi and Zakes Mokae. In 1959, Fugard directed the premiére of Nongogo.

England and Belgium (1959-1960)

In 1959, the Fugards went to England, where he tried to get into theatre, but failed, then went on to Belgium, to form the New Africa Theatre Group in Brussels with Tone Brulin, David Herbert and Clive Farrel. He acted in Herbert's A Kakamas Greek and directed Brulin's anti-apartheid play De Honden.

Return to South Africa (1961) and the Serpent Players

On his return to the country in 1961, Fugard completed and directed The Blood Knot and in 1962 worked for a while at Dorkay House, managing in The Rehearsal Room, before returning to Port Elizabeth in November 1963 and settling and settling at Schoenmakerskop in 1964. In Port Elizabeth, he helped found the Serpent Players, working with people like John Kani and Winston Ntshona. They began by performing European classics (La Mandragola/The Cure, Woyzeck, Antigone) and works by Beckett and Soyinka, but gradually moved on to creating new plays based on their experiences, such as The Coat.

Fugard's earlier work in Europe was to affect his relationship with the South African government strongly. His work and associations in Europe, taken in conjunction with his own anti-apartheid writing in the 1960s - and with his initiation of an international playwright's boycott of South Africa in 1963 - , led to his passport being taken from him in 1967 ('for reasons of state safety and security', the day after The Blood Knot aired on British television), and only returned in 1971, following a public petition. McDonald suggests that the confiscation of Fugard's passport was an attempt to coerce Fugard to leave South Africa with no opportunity for return.

While still writing his own work, Fugard at this time also experimented with the workshop process in order to co-create key works such as The Coat (1966), Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972) and The Island (1973) with John Kani, Winston Ntshona and other members of the Serpent Players.

Cape Town and The Space Theatre (1971 - )

Fugard was invited to "create" a work for CAPAB's Theatre Laboratory in Cape Town, the result being Orestes (1971), featuring Yvonne Bryceland. This production of Orestes is credited by Brian Astbury (1979) as the catalyst to the founding of the Space Theatre in Cape Town in 1972. Fugard was closely involved in the formation of the Space Theatre, together with Brian Astbury and Yvonne Bryceland. A number of Fugard's plays were to be done at the new venue, including Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (which opened the theatre on 28 May 1972), Die Hodoshe Span (The Island), Dimetos, Drivers, Hello and Goodbye, Nongogo, People are Living There, Sizwe Bansi is Dead. Fugard also directed The Terrorists for The Space.

In 1972 the Fugards purchased two houses, one in Nieu Bethesda and another in Sardinia Bay, near Port Elizabeth, and Fugard settled down to what was to be his most productive period of his career, writing and working with the leading managers, directors and performers in the country, including a lifelong association with people such as Yvonne Bryceland, Brian Astbury, Barney Simon, Mannie Manim, John Kani, Zakes Mokae, Bill Flynn, Marius Weyers, and many others.

The 1980s and the USA

In the 1980s, as his work became widely performed and studied in the Europe and the USA, and his own reputation as writer grew, Fugard began working closely with American producers, spending extensive periods as writer in residence at Yale University for instance. Most of his plays now premiéred in the United States, then opened at the Market Theatre in South Africa.

The 1990s

In 1990, Fugard purchased a second house in Nieu Bethesda, and began to live there for part of the year, and the rest in Del Mar, California. In this period he had begun to work closely with academic and writer Marianne McDonald, who would later write a biography of the playwright.

Post-Apartheid

In 2012, Fugard became an artist in residence at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS)[1] in Stellenbosch, among other projects writing his first plays in Afrikaans there. He met Paula Fourie there and he began working on a number of joint projects with her, both theatrical and biographical. He subsequently married her and they settled in Stellenbosch.

Fugard as writer

Fugard has written plays, screenplays, novels, a memoir and a collection of short stories. His notebooks have also been published.

Plays

Above anything else Fugard is a playwright, one with a distinctive and influential style and way of working. Ultilizing basic realism and a simple set, his highly verbal texts focus on a few, clearly delineated and distinctive characters at a critical moment in their lives. The first productions also epitomized Fugard's own theatrical involvement over the years. He would first write the text alone in his study, then go to work on it as director of the first production - often playing one of the roles as well. This pattern would be followed for much of his life. It was only in 2000 that he made a decision to concentrate on playwriting and tell the stories that needed telling.

Fugard has been a prolific play-maker (writing, collaborating, devising) since the 1950s. His works include:

Klaas and the Devil (195?)

The Cell (1956)

No-Good Friday (1958)

Nongogo (1959)

The Blood Knot (1961, revised as Blood Knot, 19??)

Hello and Goodbye (1965)

The Coat (1966)

People are Living There (1968)

Boesman and Lena (1969)

Orestes (1971)

Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (1972)

Sizwe Bansi is Dead (with John Kani and Winston Ntshona, 1972)

The Island (with John Kani and Winston Ntshona, 1973)

Dimetos (1975)

A Lesson from Aloes (1978)

The Drummer (1980)

Master Harold ... and the boys (1982)

The Road to Mecca (1984)

A Place with the Pigs (1987)

My Children! My Africa! (1989)

Playland (1992)

My Life (with Sivagamy Govender, Riana Jacobs, Heather Leite, Reshoketswe Maredi and Elleanor Busi Mthumunye, 1994)

Valley Song (1995)

The Captain’s Tiger: A Memoir for the Stage (1997)

The Abbess (2000)

Sorrows and Rejoicings (2001)

Exits and Entrances (2004)

Booitjie and the Oubaas (2006)

Visions (2007)

Dreams (2007)

Victory (2007)

Coming Home (2009)

Have You Seen Us? (2009)

The Train Driver (2010)

The Bird Watchers (2011)

The Blue Iris (2012)

Die Laaste Karretjiegraf (with Riana Steyn) (2013)

The Shadow of the Hummingbird (with a Prelude by Paula Fourie, 2014)

The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek (2015)

Concerning the Life of Babyboy Kleintjies (with Paula Fourie) (2020)

Screenplays (Television & Film)

The Occupation (1964)

Mille Miglia (1968)

The Guest (with Ross Devenish) (1977)

Marigolds in August (with Ross Devenish) (1980)

Other works

Tsotsi (a novel, published 1980)

Notebooks: 1960-77 (edited by Mary Benson, published in 1983)

Cousins: A Memoir (published 1994)

A Karoo Directory (a collection of short stories, 2004)/Karoo and other stories (2005).

Dry Remains (a novel with Paula Fourie, published 2023)

Fugard in translation

Afrikaans

Despite the fact that many of his characters are Afrikaans-speaking South Africans, and many commentators over the years have emphasized the fact that the characters beg to speak the language, he wrote only one play directly in it, namely Die Laaste Karretjiegraf (Fugard Theatre, 2013).

However, a number of his plays have been translated into Afrikaans, including Hello and Goodbye as Hallo en Koebaai); People are Living There (as Daar Leef Mense Daar) ; The Captain's Tiger (as Die Kaptein se Tier; Fugard Theatre, 2011); Playland (Fugard Theatre, 2014); Valley Song as Lied van die Vallei ("song of the valley").

Other languages

His play Exits and Entrances was translated into Spanish by Jose C. Nobrega Correia, entitled Salidas y entradas and performed during the 2006 La Mar de Musicas festival in Spain.

Adaptations

1991: A film adaptation of Fugard's play The Road to Mecca starring Fugard, Yvonne Bryceland and Kathy Bates was released in 1991. Directed by Fugard and Peter Goldsmid, with a screenplay by Peter Goldsmid.

2000: A film adaptation of Fugard's play Boesman and Lena, starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett. Adapted and directed by John Berry.

2005: An opera version of Fugard's play Valley Song was produced by Cape Town Opera at Spier in 2005, with music by Thomas Rajna and libretto by Guy Willoughby.

2005: A film adaptation of Fugard's novel Tsotsi was released in 2005. The screenplay was written and directed by Gavin Hood, and won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

2010: A film adaptation of Fugard's play Master Harold ... and the boys was released in 2010, starring Ving Rhames, Freddie Highmore and Patrick Mofokeng, with a screenplay by Nicky Rebelo and directed by Lonny Price.

2018: A musical adaptation of Fugard's novel Tsotsi, staged as Tsotsi the Musical by Cape Town Opera in 2018, with music by Zwai Bala and book and lyrics by Mkhululi Mabija.

Fugard as actor and/or director

Besides his own works for stage and film, many of which he both directed and performed in, he has also performed in and directed works by other writers.

As actor

Theatre:

Fugard appeared in several of the first productions of his plays. His roles include: "Higgins" in No-Good Friday (1958); "Morris" in The Blood Knot (1961); "Johnnie" in Hello and Goodbye (1965); "Boesman" in Boesman and Lena (1969); "Don" in People are Living There (1969); "Pavel" in A Place with the Pigs (1987); "The Author/Buks" in Valley Song (1995); "The Author/The Tiger" in The Captain's Tiger (1997); "Oupa" in The Shadow of the Hummingbird (2014).

Film:

He appeared in: Boesman and Lena (as "Boesman", 1973); The Guest (as "Eugene Marais", 1977); Peter Brook's Meetings with Remarkable Men[2] (as "Professor Skridlov", 1979); Marigolds in August (as "Paulus", 1980); Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi[3] (as "General Jan Smuts", 1982); Roland Joffé’s The Killing Fields[4] (as "Dr Sundesval", 1984); The Road to Mecca (as "Marius", 1991).

As director

Theatre:

Fugard has directed several productions of his own plays, including The Blood Knot (1961), Boesman and Lena (1969), Orestes (1971), Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972), The Island (1973), Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (1972) (1974), Dimetos (1975), Master Harold ... and the boys (1982), The Road to Mecca (1985), A Place with the Pigs (1987), My Children! My Africa! (1989), Playland (1992), Valley Song (1995), The Captain's Tiger (with Susan Hilferty, 1997), The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek (2015).

He has directed works by other writers, including McDonald's translation of Antigone (in Cork and Listowel, Ireland, 1999)

Film:

1991: Fugard co-directed the film adaptation of The Road to Mecca with Peter Goldsmid.

Awards and honours

Highly regarded as a playwright, both nationally and internationally, inter alia and acknowledged by William A. Henry in Time magazine in 1985 to be the "greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world".

Fugard's play Master Harold ... and the boys is considered one of the top 100 plays of the 20th century (TimeOut Best Plays of All Time; Entertainment Weekly).

In recognition of this Fugard's work has received numerous awards all over the world, including a number of Tony awards on Broadway and in the Drama Desk Award and Outer Critic’s Circle award for Master Harold ... and the boys (Best Play of 1982).

The many South African awards over the past years include Three Leaf Awards, Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, and Vita Awards.

Honorary Doctorates

Fugard has honorary doctorates from a number of universities, including Yale University (1983), Rhodes University (1983), the University of Cape Town (1984), Georgetown University (1984), Wittenberg University (1992), University of the Witwatersrand (1993), Brown University (1995), Princeton University (1998), University of Stellenbosch (2006).

Lifetime Achievement Awards

In 1998, he received South Africa’s Vita Award for Lifetime Achievement

In 2000, the Fleur du Cap Lifetime Achievement Award

In 2001, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame

In 2005, he was awarded The Order of Ikhamanga in Silver "for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre".

In 2011, he received a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre.

He is also a fellow of the British Royal Society of Literature (1986) and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1988).

Documentary material on Fugard

In 1998 his original papers were deposited at the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana, while an extensive archive can be also consulted at National English Literary Museum (NELM) in Grahamstown.

There are a large number of interviews and documentary films on Fugard and his work.

[MMcD; TH, SH]