G.P. du Toit
(18**-19*) Translator, adaptor, actor and director****
Contents
Biography
Brother of D.P. du Toit, he studied at the Gedenkschool der Hugenoten (Hugenote Gedenskool) in Paarl, where he was involved in plays.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
In 1898 he translated, adapted and produced the popular English farce Turn Him Out by T.J. Williams as part of an "entertainment" at the Hugenote Gedenkskool in Paarl in 1898. He named his version Een Misverstand and L.W.B. Binge (1969) maintains this is the first programme he could find of an performance in Afrikaans, though the programme listed it as a "Dutch Play". (The author later assured him it had been in Afrikaans.) As an actor, he not only appeared in his own plays, but also appeared in a dialogue (An Intrusion) and sang two Afrikaans comic songs.
Other translations (under the pseudonym "Charon") include a number of children's plays from the English collection Plays for Children by Annie L. Walker (Routledge, 1893). Among them Siende Blind (i.e."Seeing Blind", a translation of Love is Blind), Wie Laaste Lag, Lag die Lekkerste ("He laughs best who laughs last"), and Die Towerspieël ("The Magic Mirror").
He later directed these (and some Dutch plays taken from Thieme Publishers' Toneel-Bibliotheek - i.e "Drama Library") with child actors, as well as some plays with adults, including an early piece by C.J. Langenhoven in Philadelphia (1911).
Sources
L.W.B. Binge, 1969: pp. 4, 19, 27 and 43.
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