Jack Barbera Twentieth Century Literature, Winter 1993

From my correspondence with Sheila Fugard about her memoir, a correction to the historical record about the date of The Cell emerged. Although she chose not to write about her husband's other early unpublished play, Klaas and the Devil, both she and Athol are positive that The Cell was performed before Klaas. A play review (Anon. "Three") establishes the first production of Klaas as 3 October 1956: therefore the standard date of The Cell's first production, put at 26 May 1957 by Russell Vandenbroucke (13) and more generally as 1957 by Stephen Gray (File 11), must be incorrect.
 

Jack Barbera Twentieth Century Literature, Winter 1993

She brings a novelist's eye for detail to her evocation of people and places during those financially desperate but exciting apprenticeship years: baking papier-mache masks in their kitchen oven for The Cell.
 

Sheila Fugard Twentieth Century Literature, Winter 1993

The origins of The Cell, like so many of Athol's later plays, were rooted in both the human and political injustices of South African society. At the time we met, Athol was emotionally involved in the problems of our country. Two years earlier, when he was a seaman on a tramp steamer, he had worked alongside Malay and black seamen, and so had learned to live with men of different skin color. One day he noticed an item in the local newspaper which both moved and outraged him. A black woman had been arrested for not carrying a passbook, the identity document which blacks were forced to have with them at all times. She was jailed and, when in prison, gave birth prematurely. She screamed over and over for assistance, but her cries were ignored. The brutal warders left her in the cell to wail over her dead infant. Finally, the next The origins of The Cell, like so many of Athol's later plays, were rooted in both the human and political injustices of South African society. At the time we met, Athol was emotionally involved in the problems of our country. Two years earlier, when he was a seaman on a tramp steamer, he had worked alongside Malay and black seamen, and so had learned to live with men of different skin color. One day he noticed an item in the local newspaper which both moved and outraged him. A black woman had been arrested for not carrying a passbook, the identity document which blacks were forced to have with them at all times. She was jailed and, when in prison, gave birth prematurely. She screamed over and over for assistance, but her cries were ignored. The brutal warders left her in the cell to wail over her dead infant. Finally, the next day, they removed the bleeding, stinking thing. Athol created The Cell around this incident.
 

(link has gone) Interview
The great American playwrights, like Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O'Neill were my first masters. I consciously - as any apprentice should - tried to copy their craft, until I felt sufficiently experienced to go in my own direction.
 

Sheila Fugard Twentieth Century Literature, Winter 1993

Zakes Mokae, who had just turned twenty, and hardly ever spoke, was Athol's choice for the role of "first thug." Athol sensed the acting potential of this young man, who had been a protege of Father Trevor Huddleston, an English cleric who was a political activist in Sophiatown. Zakes had been a member of Father Huddleston's jazz group. He was withdrawn, yet behind his shy grin he was able to project an undertone of menace. No-Good Friday was the beginning of Zakes's career, which was to continue in Athol's later plays in the United States, as well as in movies.
 

Sheila Fugard Twentieth Century Literature, Winter 1993

By the time Athol was writing his next play, Nongogo, he needed other influences. He had found a new inspiration in Tone Brulin, a Belgian theatre director, brought out to South Africa by the National Theatre. Tone was both a director and playwright. Athol sat in on his rehearsals and got a feel for European theatre. This experience broadened his outlook and gave him more confidence in himself. Tone sensed Athol's unique talent. There were township visits with him, and later we went to Brussels, where Tone was helpful in getting Athol work in Dutch theatre.
 

updated as Blood Knot by 1987 (for links see 1987 version).
 

Sam Thielman Curtain Up

This is a play about decay, after all, and the ugly mid-century décor is perfectly realized by Sean Doyle's set and Nina Mahi Zardonzny's costume design. The production flags somewhat during the longer monologues, especially those delivered by Carroll, whose awkward demeanor works better as a foil for Novack's brashness. Still, Fugard's morbid spectacle of a dying family unit is a rare and challenging one, and the undertaking is ultimately worth the effort.

C. Carroll and K. Novack, Photo: John Mulcahy
 

Dennis Walder Twentieth Century Literature, Winter 1993

It was a year before the result became visible, in The Coat, "An Acting Exercise" which was presented to its first audience, a white Port Elizabeth "theatre appreciation" group who, having asked to see a sample of their work, were expecting a comedy, Wole Soyinka's Brother Jero. But since the Native Commissioner would permit performance in a "white area" only on condition the black performers did not use the toilets, and returned to the township after the show, the Players (after bitter debate) decided to do a reading of The Coat instead, using pseudonyms from their earlier roles to avoid trouble with the police, and a Brechtian actor-presenter who encouraged their white audience to think about, not merely sympathize with, what they were witnessing. Fugard's aim was to "shatter white complacency and its conspiracy of silence"; for the group, going ahead was an act of "solidarity," a testimony to their work together over the years. The collaborative procedure, with Fugard as "scribe" and provocateur, and the performers drawing on their knowledge of New Brighton, was fully vindicated by the result, which left their audience of one hundred and fifty frozen in "horror and fascination" (Notebooks 142-43) at being taken out of their safe white world into township oppression. As "Lavrenti" (Mulligan Mbikwane) announces in the opening address: 'We want to use the theatre. For what?... Some of us say to understand the world we live in, but we also boast a few idealists who think that Theatre might have something to do with changing it (Township Plays 123).
 

(link has gone) performance review
As Fugard's intellectual mouthpiece, it is the character Don who has to conceptualise the issues, making him a problematic and difficult character to play.
 

(link has gone) Fugue to Fugard by Andrew Wilson
While some of Athol Fugard's later works are marked by claustrophobic symbolism and metaphor, his earlier plays like Hello and Goodbye and People Are Living There are finely textured examples of dirty realism.
 

Richard Hinojosa 14 Jun 2005 nytheatre.com review

People Are Living There revolves around Milly, the landlady of a rundown bordering house, who has recently been cast aside by her long-term lover and is obsessed with revenge. She finds out that her ex-lover is going out on a date and decides to throw a birthday party for herself just to spite him. But this just doesn’t work out because her party guests/lodgers Don and Shorty are victims of their own ineptitude...

The one thing that binds these characters together is their fear of being alone....

There is a bleak, melancholy shadow over everything and Fugard gives us few things to laugh at. (Though not necessarily from lack of trying) I have to admit that I began to lose interest in the first half of the play because it is light on plot and heavy on banter. However, things really pick up and become interesting theatre when the party begins. There is about ten minutes of fantastic theatre when all talking ceases and we only hear (and see) the characters attacking the party food. This scene had the most impact on me. Fugard shows us throughout the play what happens to us when we sit around and wait for life to come to us instead of attacking it. So I saw this scene as a futile attempt at attacking life and the one moment when the characters break out of their shells. This is very refreshing, but then immediately afterward Fugard falls back on dramatic speeches to reveal his characters' innermost feelings.

photo © Richard Termine
 

a workshop piece.