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Authol
Fugrad
Born in the remote village of Middleburg,
Cape Province, Fugard grew up in Port
Elizabeth, the setting for most of his
plays. His full name is Harold Athol
Lanigan Fugard and as a child he was
known as Hally before he decided he
wanted to be called Athol. His parents
were English and Afrikaans, with English
as his mother tongue (he describes himself
as an Afrikaner writing in English).
Fugard went to the University of Cape
Town but dropped out just before the
exams to hitchhike through Africa. He
then became a deck hand on a ship and
sailed the world for two years, before
returning to South Africa.
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In
1958, he moved to Johannesburg
where he worked as a court
clerk, that made him keenly
aware of injustices of Apartheid.
That became the theme of many
of his plays. In that same
year, he organized a multiracial
theater - "The Rehearsal
Room" - for which he
wrote, directed, and acted.
He soon became the country's
premier playwright whose works,
many which were banned, deal
with contemporary South Africa
and the psychological and
physical barriers confronted
in trying to overcome Apartheid.
His plays are almost always
set in South Africa and steeped
in the politics of the day.
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However, the
politics never affects his insight into
people. Like Tennessee
Williams, Fugard creates characters
with strengths and weaknesses which
make them unable to fit into what society
requires. And like Williams the plays
often have dominant women.
Fugard started working in the late 1950´s
with a group of actors in Johannesburg,
including Zakes Mokae, who were influenced
by Strasberg´s method acting. Fugard
wrote his first play No
Good Friday, which was
performed in "The Rehearsal Room".
In the early 1960´s Fugard returned
to Port Elizabeth and worked with The
Serpent Players (their first performance
was in the former snake pit of a zoo,
hence the name).
Fugard's attacks
on Apartheid brought him into direct
conflict with the South African government.
After his play Blood Knot
(1961) was produced in England, the
government withdrew his passport for
four years. His support in 1962 of an
international boycott against the South
African practice of segregating theatre
audiences led to further restrictions.
The restrictions were relaxed somewhat
in 1971, when he was allowed to travel
to England to direct his play Boesman
and Lena (1969). "A
Lesson from Aloes" won the 1980
New York Drama Critics' Circle Award.
Master Harold . . . and
the Boys (1982) premiered
at the Yale Repertory Theatre and then
was taken to Broadway. Fugard has appeared
as an actor in several international
films, including Meetings
with Remarkable Men (1979),
Ghandi (1982),
and The Killing Fields (1984).
Interestingly, the well-known US actor
Danny Glover has acted in numerous Fugard
plays: The Island, Sizwe
Bansi Is Dead, Blood Knot and Master
Harold . . . and the Boys.
Fugard’s plays
have been regularly premiered in fringe
theatres in South Africa, London (The
Royal Court Theatre) and New York.
The varying styles of his plays can
be roughly split up into periods: Apprenticeship
(up to 1957), Social Realism
(1958 to1961), Chamber Theatre
(1961 to 1970), Improvised Theatre
(1966-1973) and Poetic Symbolism (1975
onwards).
Anton
Pavlovich Chekhov was born
in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern
Russia, the son of a grocer. Chekhov's
grandfather was a serf, who had bought
his own freedom & that of his three
sons in 1841. He also taught himself
to read & write. Yevgenia Morozov,
Chekhov's mother, was the daughter of
a cloth merchant.
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Aristophanes
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democracy had already begun to sour
for the Athenians.The people were increasingly
demoralized by the ongoing conflicts
of the Peloponnesian War & the loss
of their greatest hero, Pericles, had
been taken from them & replaced
by unscrupulous politicians such as
Cleon & Hyperbolus. It is little
wonder, therefore, that Aristophanes
laughter is tinged.
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Arthur
Miller was born in Harlem,
New York City; the family moved shortly
afterwards to a six-storey building
at 45110th Street between Lenox and
Fifth Avenues. His father, Isidore Miller,
was an illiterate Jewish immigrant from
Poland. His succesfull ladies-wear manufacturer
and shopkeeper was ruined in the depression.
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