Mavis Taylor

(1924-1997) Actress, designer, director, and enormously influential teacher.

Biography

(7 October 1924 – 4 November 1997)

Training

Studied at the University of Natal where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art and Psychology, and a Teaching Diploma. She studied and worked in theatre in England, where she obtained several professional qualifications.

Career

Co-opted onto the staff of the Drama Department of the University of Cape Town in 1952 by Rosalie van der Gucht, where she was employed to teach design and was soon noticed for her designs for departmental productions. She also began directing her own productions in 1953 and by the early sixties, she had made a name for herself as a director. In 1969/70 she spent three months in America on a Carnegie Scholarship and two years later she was invited to spend a year in New York as resident director at Ellen Stewart's Cafe La Mama and returned to UCT bringing all the innovation and expertise of her American experience to theatre in Cape Town through her productions and to her teaching of acting and improvisation. After Robert Mohr's death in 1984 Mavis became Acting Head of the Drama Department for a year. In July 1988 she was appointed as Head of the Department, a post which she occupied until her retirement in December 1992.

Maintaining links with international artists, even during the cultural boycott (e.g. director and theorist Richard Schechner and author Steven Berkoff), allowed her to do work not always possible for others. Ever respondent to her times, dynamically embracing the complexity of South African social and political issues in both her professional and personal life, she opened her home to young people in need of nurturing and support, made theatre about the political situation, and demanded that the Drama Department actively grapple with the social change in the country. In the early 1990's Mavis argued for a theatre for healing for South Africa. She initiated an outreach programme Little Theatre Tours which took mobile, low budget theatre productions into the townships dissolving the barriers of segregated urban planning and in 1987 founded the New Africa Theatre Project, with which she worked till the end of her life. In 198/9* she took over the reigns of CAPAB Drama at a time when artistic and theatrical directions were both unclear and under constant challenge on issues of legitimacy and relevance??*.

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

Costumes for Die Koopman van Venesië (for Fred Engelen, Little Theatre, Cape Town,1960), Revenge and Slag for The Space , *.

As director her many productions include Little Malcolm and his Struggle against the Eunuchs (1967), ** . For The Space she directed Balls, Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi, Female Transport, The Final Sting of the Dying Wasp, The House of Blue Leaves, The Indian wants the Bronx, Revenge, Sing a Song of Empire and Slag. She directed the opening production of the Baxter Theatre in October 1977 (Leonard Bernstein’s Candide) and a number of Steven Berkoff’s works, starting with Greek in 1986. Also God’s Forgotten (Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1979, La Mama, New York),***

As actress she was seen in works such as **, **. *, the Marat/Sade (1980), *, Greek (Berkoff, 1985), *

Also created a number of plays, including Thina Bantu - We People (with the UCT Workshop) in 1986 (Fleur du Cap Award for Best New Indigenous Script.)*

Awards

Over the years she received numerous awards for her work. Besides a range of Leaf Awards, Fleur du Cap Awards (Winner of two Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards as Best Director (1980, 1985))., Vita Awards, these include the Cape Tercentenary Foundation Award of Merit for her contribution to South African Theatre (1986), a Vita Honorary Award for her contribution to theatre in South Africa and the 1987 Distinguished Woman Award from UCT. Also created a number of plays, including Thina Bantu - We People (with the UCT Workshop) in 1986 (Fleur du Cap Award for Best New Indigenous Script.), **.

In 1993 she received the Fleur du Cap Lifetime Award for her contribution to the industry.

Sources

Tucker, 1997.

Liz Mills,

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