G.P. du Toit

DU TOIT, G.P. (18**-19*) Translator, adaptor, actor and director**** Brother of D.P. du Toit. 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 Gedenkschool in Paarl in 1898. He named his version Een Misverstand and 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.) Other translations include Siende Blind (tr under the pseudonym "Charon" of Love is Blind?* by ***). He also performed various other acts, including a dialogue (An Intrusion) and sang two Afrikaans comic songs. In the same year he apparently also translated a number of children's plays from the English collection Plays for Children by Annie L. Walker. (Routledge, 1893). Among his Afrikaans titles are Wie Laaste Lag, Lag die Lekkerste ("He laughs best who laughs last"), Siende Blind ("Seeing Blind") 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 children, as well as some plays with adults, including an early piece by C.J. Langenhoven in Philadelphia in 1911.

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