Try for White

Try for White is a 1959 play by Basil Warner. A play about miscegenation and the effects of this on families. The text is unpublished and housed with NELM in Grahamstown. An edited version of the text (editors Petrus du Preez and Edwin Hees), based on the prompt text belonging to stage manager Paddy Canavan, was published in the South African Theatre Journal, 17:1, 284-371, 2003.

Performance history in South Africa

Try for White was first performed by the Cockpit Players at the Hofmeyr Theatre in Cape Town on January 17, 1959. In the cast: Jane Fenn, Walter Glennie, Marjorie Gordon, Nigel Hawthorne, Heather Lloyd-Jones, Michael McGovern, Minna Millsten, Zoë Randall, Michael Turner. It was directed by Leonard Schach and decor by Bruce Palmer. The production moved to the Transvaal in February 1959.

Translations and adaptations

The text was used as the basis for the script of a controversial film by Emil Noval and Jans Rautenbach, entitled Katrina (197*).

Sources

Inskip, 1977. p 122

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