Mavis Taylor

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

Biography

She was born on 7 October 1924 and died on 4 November 1997 at the age of 73.

Training

She 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

Mavis was 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

She acted in Don't Let the Summer Come and Arme Marat (1968).

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),*** , Emgxobhozweni (1996). The Tree That Sat Down (1964), West.

Produced and costumes Caligula 1955.

Tiger at the Gates costumes 1955, Back to Methuselah 1956, Costumes Die Goue Kring 1958, Androcles and the Lion (1958), Arms and the Man (1958).

Directed a Cape Flats Players production of Aluta Continua with Peter Braaf in 1987.

Dir The Real Inspector Hound 1971 (and designed costumes) The Final Sting of the Dying Wasp Space 1979 The Trials of Brother Jero 1980s

I am Herbert (1978), Little Malcolm and his Struggle against the Eunuchs (1967), The Orange Earth, Trumpets and Raspberries, Oh What a Lovely War!, Balls, The Alchemist, Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi (Space 1978), The Egg, Female Transport (Space 1975), Greek, God's Forgotten, Can't Pay? Won't Pay! (1993), Kanna hy kô Hystoe (1976), The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail (1988), The Man Who Came to Dinner, Tango (1970), The Knack, Not For The Deserving (1976), Don Juan, A Little Life Like This (1992), A Lily in Little India, The Form, Once in a Lifetime, St Joan of the Stockyards (1979), People Like Us (1983), The Learned Ladies (1956), One Way Pendulum, The Country Wife, A Clearing in the Woods (1959), The Recruiting Officer (1965), Emgxobhozweni, Henry V, The House of Blue Leaves, King Lear (1962), The Madwoman of Chaillot (1985), Marat/Sade (Baxter Theatre 1980), Much Ado about Nothing, My Poor Marat, You Never Can Tell, The Oresteia, We Bombed in New Haven with Pieter-Dirk Uys taking over when she fell ill, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Wizard of Oz, Sing a Song of Empire, Once Upon a Mattress (1967), Thina Bantu - We People, You Can't Take it With You, Die Vader (1969), Sweet Bird of Youth (1985), Suite in Three Keys, Candide (1977), The Final Sting of the Dying Wasp (1979), Tom Paine (1981), The Zoo Story, After Magritte (1981), The Government Inspector, The Indian Wants the Bronx, Peer Gynt, The Skin of our Teeth (1963), Crossing the Line (1989), Measure for Measure, America Hurrah, Kvetch (1988), Dankie Auntie 1989, Guys and Dolls (Baxter Theatre 1990).

Directed and designed Revenge (Space 1972) and Slag (1973).

Set designed The Royal Hunt of the Sun.

Costumes Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (with Doreen Graves 1953), décor Don't Let Summer Come,

Costumes for Die Koopman van Venesië (for Fred Engelen, Little Theatre, Cape Town,1960).

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.)* She was one of the major forces in the formation of Theatre Action Group in 1990.

Among her students were Chris Weare, Tjaart Potgieter and Geoffrey Hyland.

Awards

Over the years she received numerous awards for her work. Besides a range of Three Leaf 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.

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

Sources

Liz Mills.

Die Burger, 8 November 1997.

Various entries in the NELM catalogue.

Tribute written by Temple Hauptfleisch published in Insig, 31 December 1997.

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