Rosalie van der Gucht
(1907/8-1985) Hugely popular and influential speech teacher, lecturer and director who made an enormous contribution to South African theatre in the post- World War II period. Born in Britain, trained at **, she came to South Africa as part of a teacher exchange programme between Britain and South Africa in the 1940s. Settling in Cape Town she taught at Peff's Drama School and also taught speech and elocution at the University of Cape Town. Made her debut as an actress at the Little Theatre in Costa Couvara’s 1942 production of Arsenic and Old Lace with Geraldine Jordi. This production played to the highest accolades and won a sterling review in Ivor Jones’ column in the Cape Argus. She was also seen in The Glass Menagerie (1949), **. In 1946 she became head of the UCT's Department of Speech and Drama, a role she fulfilled till 1971, when she was succeeded by Robert Mohr. In 19* she was made professor.** In the early 1950s she was invited to establish a branch of Evans and Tilley's Children's Theatre Incorporated in Cape Town. Van der Gucht however differed in policy from her northern colleagues, for she wanted to harness the educational possibilities to those of entertainment, promoting simplicity of presentation and participation by the audience, rather than passive observation of spectacle. Her productions (e.g. Arena Entertainment, Let's Make an Opera and Brian Way's Pinocchio, adapted by Gretel Mills) all made use of informal arena-style staging and audience participation which influenced the action of the play. These radically different ideas about the nature and practice of theatre for young audiences and complications in funding the Cape Town branch caused problems and led Van der Gucht to form an independent Organisation called Theatre for Youth in 1956, which utilized her students at the University of Cape Town rather than professional performers. Retired in 1971. In 197* she directed Three’s Company at The Space. VAN DER GUCHT, Rosalie. Actress who went on to become head (and later Professor) of the University of Cape Town’s Speech and Drama Department. She starred in The Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams which was staged at the Little Theatre by Leonard Schach in 1948. Cast also included Rosemary Kirkcaldy. She directed Coward’s Blithe Spirit for PACT in 1977. She directed the Baxter production of Aleksei Arbuzov’s Old-World starring Zoe Randall and John Carson at the Leonard Rayne in 1984. She died in 1985. V/D GUCHT, Rosalie Prof was the driving force behind entertainment for children in the Cape. She had her training at the Grahamstown Training College in 1940. In 1942 she was appointed as an asst to Ruth Peffers who founded the Speech & Drama Dept at UCT. Her drama teaching was directly related to the syllabus & linked all the other arts. Similar projects were tackled by her in conjunction with George Feldsman, a Coloured headmaster at a little school in Chapel St.
Sources
See De Beer, 19**; Inskip, 197*; Morris, 19**, Astbury, 1979; Tucker, 1997
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