Athol Fugard honoured by English Academy

Athol Fugard honoured by the English Academy

At the Gala Dinner of the English Academy Conference held at the Bloemendal Restaurant in Durvanville on , Athol Fugard, distinguished South African playwright, actor and producer, was awarded the English Academy Gold Medal for 2011 on 22 September this year.  The following was the citation which was read on the occasion:

Athol Fugard was born in Middelburg, Eastern Cape, South Africa in 1932 and grew up in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, with English as his mother tongue. He describes himself as an Afrikaner writing in English. He started writing plays and producing them with the support of his wife, writer Sheila Meiring, when he was disillusioned by the apartheid system of the day. During 1958 Fugard worked as a clerk in a Native Commissioners’ Court, an experience that further increased his awareness of the injustices of apartheid. Through his plays, Fugard transformed the unknown, ordinary people of his own small corner of the Eastern Cape into dramatic images of profound and lasting significance. As a writer, performer and director, Fugard combines his love of theatre with his moral concerns.  His collaborative work with performers across the racial divide during the years of apartheid not only helped to legitimise black experience as a form of cultural expression but has also had an enduring influence on South African theatre. The political impetus of Fugard’s plays brought him into conflict with the nationalist government and, to avoid prosecution, he was forced to have his plays produced and published outside South Africa.

Today Fugard is regarded as one of South Africa’s most important playwrights, with both a national and an international reputation. Despite their local origins and idiom, his plays enthral audiences across the globe and have won multiple awards. In 1988 Fugard was acknowledged by William A. Henry in Time magazine as the “foremost active playwright in the English-speaking world.” Initially famous as a campaigning dramatist who tackled issues of apartheid, Fugard continues to write about the problems facing post-apartheid South Africa under its constitutionally elected democratic government.  The Fugard Theatre, in The District Six area of Cape Town, South Africa, opened in February 2010 and a new play, The Train Driver, 2010, written and directed by Athol Fugard, had its world premier there to great critical acclaim in March 2010.

Although Fugard’s plays are always immersed in the politics of the day (apartheid and now post-apartheid), he never allows politics to affect his insight into people. Fugard’s characters are similar to those found in the works of Tennessee Williams, namely people with strengths and weaknesses which make them unable to fit into what society requires. Women occupy a dominant role in many of Fugard’s plays.

Fugard says of his work “[my] real territory as a dramatist is the world of secrets with their powerful effect on human behaviour and the trauma of their revelation. Whether it is the dark and destructive secret in Hester’s heart (Hello and Goodbye, 1965), the withering one in Boesman’s (Boesman and Lena, 1969) or the radiant secret in Miss Helen’s (Road to Mecca, 1984), they are the dynamos that generate all the significant action in my plays”.

Several of Fugard’s plays have been made into films, including among their actors Fugard himself. His film debut as a director occurred in 1992, when he co-directed the adaptation of his play The Road to Mecca with Peter Goldsmid, who also wrote the screenplay. The film adaptation of his novel Tsotsi, written and directed by Gavin Hood, won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.

Fugard is the recipient of many literary awards, honors, and honorary degrees, including the 2005 Order of Ikhamanga in Silver “for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre” from the government of South Africa, he is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  As recently as September 2010, Fugard’s contribution to theatre and social reform was acknowledged at the Absa Fugard Festival held in Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo, South Africa, the setting for his well known play The Road to Mecca (1984).

Currently, Fugard and his wife live in San Diego, California, where he teaches as an adjunct professor of playwriting, acting, and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego, while still maintaining their links with South Africa.

List of Athol Fugards achievements from 1956 to present day (in lieu of CV

(source:”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athol_Fugard“)

Plays (in chronological order of first production and/or publication)

• Klaas and the Devil (1956)
• The Cell (1957)
• No-Good Friday (1958)
• Nongogo (1959)
• The Blood Knot (1961); later revised and entitled Blood Knot (1987)
• Hello and Goodbye (1965)
• The Coat (1966)
• People Are Living There (1968)
• The Last Bus (1969)
• Boesman and Lena (1969)
• Friday’s Bread on Monday (1970)
• Sizwe Bansi Is Dead (1972) (developed with John Kani, and Winston Ntshona in workshops)
• The Island (1972) (developed with John Kani, and Winston Ntshona in workshops)
• Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (1972)
• Dimetos (1975)
• Orestes (1978)
• A Lesson from Aloes (1978)

• The Drummer (1980)
• Master Harold.and the Boys (1982)
• The Road to Mecca (1984)
• A Place with the Pigs: a personal parable (1987)

• My Children! My Africa! (1989)
• My Life (1992)
• Playland (1993)
• Valley Song (1996)
• The Captain’s Tiger: a memoir for the stage (1999)
• Sorrows and Rejoicings (2001)
• Exits and Entrances (2004)
• Booitjie and the Oubaas (2006)
• Victory (2007)
• Coming Home (2009)
• Have you seen Us (2009)
• The Train Driver (2010)

Publications:

• Statements: [Three Plays]. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1974.
• (Co-authored with John Kani and Winston Ntshona; see below.)
• Three Port Elizabeth Plays: Blood Knot; Hello and Goodbye; and Boesman and Lena. Oxford and New York, 1974.
• Sizwe Bansi Is Dead and The Island. New York: Viking Press, 1976.
• Dimetos and Two Early Plays. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1977.
• Boesman and Lena and Other Plays. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1980.
• Selected Plays of Fugard: Notes. Ed. Dennis Walder. London: Longman, 1980. Beirut: York Press, 1980.
• A Lesson from Aloes: A Play. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1981.
• Marigolds in August. A. D. Donker, 1982..
• Boesman and Lena. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1983.
• People Are Living There. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1983..
• Master Harold…and the Boys. New York and London: Penguin, 1984..
• The Road to Mecca: A Play in Two Acts. London: Faber and Faber, 1985. [Suggested by the life and work of Helen Martins of New Bethesda, Eastern Cape, South Africa.]
• Selected Plays. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1987. [Includes: Master Harold…and the Boys; Blood Knot (new version); Hello and Goodbye; Boesman and Lena.]
• A Place with the Pigs: a personal parable. London: Faber and Faber, 1988.
• My Children! My Africa! and Selected Shorter Plays. Ed. and introd., Stephen Gray. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1990.
• Blood Knot and Other Plays. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991.
• Playland and Other Worlds. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1992.
• The Township Plays. Ed. and introd. Dennis Walder. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1993. [Includes: No-good Friday, Nongogo, The Coat, Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, and The Island.]
• Cousins: A Memoir, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1994.
• Hello and Goodbye. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1994.
• Valley Song. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
• The Captain’s Tiger: A Memoir for the Stage. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1997.
• Athol Fugard: Plays. London: Faber and Faber, 1998.
• Interior Plays. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2000.
• Port Elizabeth Plays. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2000.
• Sorrows and Rejoicings. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2002.
• Exits and Entrances. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2004.

Co-authored with John Kani and Winston Ntshona

• Statements: [Three Plays]. 1974. By Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. Rev. ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1978. [“Two workshop productions devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, and a new play”; includes: Sizwe Bansi Is Dead and The Island, and Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act.]

Co-authored with Ross Devenish

• The Guest: an episode in the life of Eugene Marais. By Athol Fugard and Ross Devenish. Craighall: A. D. Donker, 1977. (Die besoeker: ‘n episode in die lewe van Eugene Marais. Trans. into Afrikaans by Wilma Stockenstrom. Craighall: A. D. Donker, 1977.

Filmography – Films adapted from Fugard’s plays and novel

• Boesman and Lena (1974), dir. Ross Devenish
• Marigolds in August (1980), dir. Ross Devenish
• Master Harold…and the Boys (1984), Television movie, dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, first broadcast on Showtime
• The Road to Mecca (1992), co-dir. by Fugard and Peter Goldsmid (screen adapt.)
• Boesman and Lena (2000), dir. John Berry
• Tsotsi (2005), screen adapt. and dir. Gavin Hood; 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Film roles

• Boesman in Boesman and Lena (1974)
• Eugene Marais in The Guest at Steenkampskraal (1977)
• Professor Skridlov in Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979)^[
• General Jan Smuts in Gandhi (1982)
• Doctor Sundesval in The Killing Fields (1984)
• Paulus Olifant in Marigolds in August (1984)
• The Reverend Marius Byleveld in The Road to Mecca (1992)

Selected awards and nominations

Theatre

• Obie Award

o    1971 – Best Foreign Play – Boesman and Lena (winner)

• Tony Award

o    1975 – Best Play – Sizwe Banzi Is Dead / The Island – Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona (nomination)

• New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards

o    1981 – Best Play – A Lesson From Aloes (winner)

o    1988 – Best Foreign Play – The Road to Mecca (winner)

• Evening Standard Award

o    1983 – Best Play – Master Harold…and the Boys (winner)

• Drama Desk Awards

o    1982 – Master Harold…and the Boys (winner)

• Lucille Lortel Awards

o    1992 – Outstanding Revival – Boesman and Lena (winner)

o    1996 – Outstanding Body of Work (winner)

• The Audie Awards (Audio Publishers Association)

o    1999 – Theatrical Productions – The Road to Mecca (winner)^[

• Outer Critics Circle Award

o    2007 – Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play – Exits and Entrances (nomination)^[

Honorary awards

• Writers Guild of America, East Award

o    1986 – Evelyn F. Burkey Memorial Award – (along with Lloyd Richards)

• National Orders Award (South Africa)

o    2005 – The Order of Ikhamanga in Silver – “for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre”

Honorary degrees

• Yale University, 1983
• Wittenberg University, 1992^[
• University of the Witwatersrand, 1993
• Brown University, 1995
• Princeton University, 1998

Categories: Volume 3

Aversion or allure? Assisting teachers to teach effectively