Post Mortem

Two plays by this name have been performed in South Africa: Post Mortem by Benjamin Bradford and Post Mortem by Pieter Fourie.

There are also three other registered plays by this title, not performed in the country to date:

Post Mortem (A.R. Gurney, 2006)[1], Post Mortem (Noel Coward, 1931)[2], and Postmortem (Ken Ludwig, 1983)[3].

Post Mortem by Benjamin Bradford (1925-)

The original text

First produced in Lexington, Kentucky in 1970. ***

South African performances

1973: Performed as a lunch-hour presentation at The Space (Cape Town) in 1973, directed by Bill Flynn, with Phillip Boucher, Christopher Prophet and Mike Richard. Lighting and stage management by Donald Fuller.

Sources

Go to ESAT Bibliography

Post Mortem by Pieter Fourie (1940-)

The original text

Based on a newspaper report, this is a fictionalized version of a family massacre on a South African farm and the devastating effects of a range of neuroses and sexual problems, in which an unhappy woman resurrects her husband, a coloured girl and a young man from three graves in the veld, to ascertain what had really happened to them on that day. Seen by some reviewers as a highly symbolic work, the final of a series of "farm tragedies" written by Fourie (along with Die Koggelaar, Donderdag se Mense and Ek, Anna van Wyk), even seen as a "most mortem" of the previous plays and major themes in Fourie's oeuvre (see Luwes, 2012).

Written and first performed in 1993, the text was only published in 2016 by Protea Boekhuis.

South African performances

1993: First performed in the Wynand Mouton Theatre at the University of the Free State, directed by Chris Fourie, with Anton Welman, and three students - Simoné Verster, Linda Louw and Nico Davids. Lighting by Heike Gehring and stage direction by Judy van Zyl.

1993: Perfomred at the ATKV Kampustoneel in the Breytenbach Yheatre, Pretoria Once again directed by Chris Fourie, with the same cast of Anton Welman, Simoné Verster, Linda Louw and Nico Davids. Lighting by Heike Gehring and stage direction by Judy van Zyl.

2000: Performed in die Wynand Mouton Theatre, Bloemfontein from 25 Augustus tot 2 September. Directed by Anton Welman, with professional actors Stephanie Brink and Anton Welman, and two postgraduate students, Teresca Muishond and Richard Miles.

Sources

https://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Fourie

http://scholar.ufs.ac.za:8080/xmlui/handle/11660/1330

Volksblad 17 Nov 2001.

Go to ESAT Bibliography

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