Fugard is famous as a
campaigning dramatist, tackling issues of apartheid. Now that
apartheid is over, and South Africa has a democratic government,
Fugard looks at the problems of the new South Africa.
My Children! My Africa!
1989
"Knowledge has banished fear"
"Hope...don't be fooled by its gentle name. It is as dangerous as Hate and
Despair"
"The clocks are ticking, my friends. History has got a strict timetable. If we're not
careful we might be remembered as the country where everybody
arrived too late"
"The thought that you and Thami would be another two victims of this country's lunacy, was
almost too much for me. The time for lamentation is past"

A teacher Mr M and his two pupils.
Fugard says "At that hour with the Uitenhage mountains ahead
of us...this was the first time I had a sense of Africa as an
epic adventure- a vision which finally found its expression in
the mouth of my beloved Mr M". Apartheid was ending and Fugard
attacks the decision of the ANC to boycott schools and
the damage it would cause a generation of Africans.
Fugard has moved from the injustices of the South African
government to the mistakes of the ANC. First performed at the Market
Theatre, Johannesburg on 1989. John Kani starred as Mr M and
Fugard directed. Fugard would later direct his daughter Lisa in
the play. Photo above of
Bisi Adigun, Judith Roddy and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith in the Irish
production by Theresia
Guschlbauer, photo below of Glynn Turman as Mr.
M. and Meghan Heimbecker in The Wilma production by
Blanka Zizka.

My Life 1992
"They don't know that when I'm sad I pretend I'm not... even though my
inside is burning with pain"
"Are you impressed with our stories
because of what the say about us, or maybe because of something they say about
you?"
A piece Fugard workshopped with
Elleanor Busi Mthimunye, Reshoketswe Maredi, Heather Leite, Riana
Jacobs and Sivagamy Govender, based on diary extracts from the five
girls. In Bare Stage Mary
Benson says "Athol was in the city, creating a play
with five young women, chosen from auditions with
high-school students. he did not intend the cast to be
all-female but they had shown far greater potential than
any of the boys. Busi and Shoki were black, Gamy Asian,
Heather white and Riana of mixed race. He saw it as a
chamber quintet for which he would interweave their
stories."
An aerobics session frames the play
(called by Fugard a recital) which is made up of stories told by the
girls. The setting is just before the first free elections in
South Africa.
Fugardīs heavy collaboration with others is
reminiscent of his work with Kani and Ntshona, but less successful. However
the sessions were clearly an inspiration for Valley Song. Fugard says "I wanted to rediscover the
potency of the simple, unadorned, uncosmeticised word". The words are
the girls "although I never tampered with the text or content of the
stories I take responsibility for the choice and juxtaposition of the
material". Last photo by Ruphin Coudyzer from
Wertheimīs biography, others from "My Life & Valley Song".

Playland 1993
"I watch everything all the time/ So when do you
sleep? / I don't sleep"
"if you want to know the
devil I can show you him as well. He wears a khaki uniform, he's got an AK74 in his hands/ SWAPO/ Ja, thats his name"
"Forgive me or
kill me. That's the choice you have"
"A dream...is just
a bloody dream. It's what goes on in your head when you
are sleeping, when your eyes are closed. Like when you
imagine things... Don't you even know the difference
between that and what is real? Must I now explain that to
you?"

The New Perspectives production in the UK
2015

John Kani and Sean Taylor
Fugardīs first play after apartheid. On new year's eve 1990 two men
meet at an amusement park. Martinus is the watchman. Gideon is the visitor who hangs
around Martinus. And the Playland is a form of hell or purgatory
where both live with their guilt of murder, the one for passion
the other for politics. Gideon repents but is not forgiven,
while Martinus is forgiven but does not repent. The play is a
parable for South Africa and reconciliation, two sides of
a bloody conflict coming together.
Fugard said during
the writing of Playland "I am in fact at work on a new play
at the moment [Playland] and I still find myself terribly
intimidated by the reality of blank paper. None of my past
experience in writing plays helps me deal with what I describe as
īthe inquisition of blank paperī when I face up to it at the
outset of a new work." The character Gideon le Roux is
based on Garth, Fugardīs cousin (see Cousins)
"a man suffering from shellshock...I also understand now why
I heard echoes of his unnerving laugh all through the writing of Playland."
"This photo from our border war
was a catalyst in the writing of Playland. I added to it the
watchful, sorrowing presence of a mother". Fugard quoted in
the programme for the Temple Productions Playland. The photo is
by John Liebenberg.Photo
by Michael Brosilow from Wertheimīs biography

Valley
Song 1996
"if only ... we could sit down at the kitchen table
tonight and talk about things the way we used to"
"You must let me
go, Oupa, otherwise I will also run away from you"
"open your eyes and look around you"
"it involves
letting go of things and I've discovered that that is a
lot harder than I thought"
"Did a woman every smell as good as the
Karoo earth after a good rain? Or feel as good?"
Old Africa and new Africa and the need for the young to
form their own lives. A double role for Fugard, playing
the author and
the grandfather Buks. The other player is the 17 year
old Veronica. Fugard says "I had ended up sick and tired of the
madness and desperate scramble of my life in the make-believe world of the
Theatre. I wanted to return to īessentials, to the īrealī world, and here was my
chance to do it". The play is
dedicated to Barney Simon with whom Fugard worked. Coming Home is Fugard's
play of what happens to Veronica.


Nandini Rao and Jagdish Raja under Arundhati Raja's
direction (left and below) and Eboni Summer Cooper and Vincent Dowling of The Miniature
Theatre of Chester production, directed by Byam Stevens (right).

Coming Home 2009

Fugard revisits his play Valley Song.
Coming Home continues the story of Veronika. She now has a child and
she returns to her grandfathers house- he has since died but his presence
is still there. Veronika struggles to survive with her boy.
Alfred, mentioned in Valley Songs, helps.

"Dream big, dream great"
The picture above is from the Arcola
production in London, UK in 2010. The boy holds pumpkin seeds- for the
grandfather the seeds growing into pumpkins were symbols of hope. Veronika
shows the boy the tin where grandfather kept the seeds. The boy uses the
tin to keep the list of words he has learnt- new seeds for the future.
A four person play (three adults
and one child). Some scenes from Valley Song are woven into flashbacks.
And as with much of his work, Fugard celebrates the poetry of Afrikaans
language. A character also reads from Fugard's own Karoo and other
stories.
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