Athol Fugard, South Africa’s Giant Playwright, Dies at 92

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Renowned South African playwright Athol Fugard, who used his dramatic works like “The Blood Knot” and “Master Harold’…and the Boys” to reveal the devastating impact of apartheid on the human spirit, passed away at the age of 92. His powerful portrayals highlighted the daily injustices perpetuated by this racist system.

As a gamer, I’d put it like this: “I’m deeply saddened to say that I’ve lost one of my favorite storytellers, Athol Fugard, from South Africa. He was a masterful writer who crafted tales that profoundly impacted the cultural and social fabric of our nation. His stories will continue to live on in our hearts.

Six of Athol Fugard’s plays made their way to Broadway, among them were “The Blood Knot” and two presentations of “Master Harold”… and the Boys.

Or, in a more casual tone:

Six of Athol Fugard’s plays found success on Broadway, with both versions of “Master Harold”… and the Boys, along with “The Blood Knot,” making the cut.

The play “Blood Knot” explores the strained bond between two Black half-brothers, one of whom possesses lighter skin and is able to pass as white, resulting in him devaluing his darker brother.

Gayton McKenzie, the Minister of Sports, Arts, and Culture in South Africa, expressed that we had a difficult burden of apartheid but were fortunate to have exceptional artists who illuminated its effects and led us towards overcoming it. We owe a significant gratitude to this late, remarkable man,” said McKenzie about Fugard.

Due to Fugard’s most renowned plays focusing on the hardships stemming from South Africa’s apartheid policies enacted by its white-minority administration, it came as a shock to some of his international audience that Fugard was actually white.

He defied the racial segregation policies of the apartheid government by working alongside Black artists and authors, and “The Blood Knot” – in which he portrayed the lighter-skinned sibling – is thought to have been the first significant play in South Africa to showcase a racially diverse cast.

As a gamer, I might rephrase it like this:

“Back in the day, when I was directing ‘The Serpent Players’ at a Black theater workshop, I found myself under close scrutiny by the government. This came with a hefty price – my passport was confiscated for four long years. Unfortunately, five of my fellow workshop members were incarcerated on Robben Island, a place notorious for housing political prisoners during apartheid, including the great Nelson Mandela. My family and I lived under constant surveillance, our letters read, phones tapped, and our home invaded by police at midnight.

Fugard expressed that he believed the most outstanding theater in Africa would originate from South Africa, as the constant exposure to daily injustice and brutality had fostered a depth of thought, emotion, and understanding of fundamental values that he has not seen matched anywhere else on the continent.

He considered his work as a means to undermine the brutality of apartheid, expressing it as, “The most effective form of resistance is love.

The play titled ‘Master Harold‘… and the Boys is a Tony Award-nominated production that unfolds in a South African tea shop during 1950. The story revolves around the intricate bond between the white owner’s son and his two Black caretakers, who have functioned as surrogate parents to him. One stormy day, the ties that bind them are severely tested when the young man starts mistreating the servants.

In simpler terms, carry on with your duties,” the boy instructs the servant. “My mother is correct, she’s often reminding me about maintaining distance. Today, you’ve overstepped boundaries. That needs to change immediately. You are just a servant here, and please remember that.

1983, during the peak of apartheid, renowned anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu attended the opening performance.

Tutu expressed his feelings by stating that he had expected disappointment from the event, and instead, it brought tears of emotion. He was conveying a message already familiar to us, emphasizing the impact of South Africa’s history on its people and their relationships.

In a critique of a play from 1980, TIME magazine noted that Athol Fugard’s work exposed the spiritual destitution and the twisted perversion of moral values that affected not just Blacks but also Whites during the apartheid era in South Africa.

Atulanike (Atie) Fugard was born on June 11, 1932, in Middleburg – a town located in the semi-arid Karoo region. His father, who had English and Irish roots, found great pleasure in playing jazz piano, while his mother, of Afrikaans descent with roots tracing back to South Africa’s early Dutch-German settlers, supported the family by managing a store.

(Note: Atulanike is an alternate spelling for Athol)

Fugard described his initial visit to Sophiatown, a previously black neighborhood of Johannesburg that was later transformed into a white residential area, as a pivotal moment in his life. He had initially gone there due to an unforeseen circumstance, and it was during this visit that he experienced township life for the first time.

This sparked Fugard’s long-held desire to write. On the brink of graduating from the University of Cape Town with a degree in philosophy, he decided to depart, as he felt that if he remained, he might become entrenched in academia.

Until the year 1956, Athol Fugard’s theater involvement was limited to acting in school plays. However, when he tied the knot with actress Sheila Meiring that same year, his focus shifted towards playwriting for the stage. Their marriage eventually ended in divorce. In 2016, Fugard married Paula Fourie as his second wife.

1958 saw him securing a position as a clerk at a Johannesburg Native Commissioner’s Court, a place where Black individuals who violated racial regulations were penalized frequently, approximately once every two minutes. Fugard admitted that his financial situation was dire and the job was necessary, but it also involved observing physical punishments inflicted upon law offenders. He described this period as the bleakest in his life.

He found a measure of contentment by slightly disrupting the process, specifically by “reorganizing the court documents,” thereby causing a delay that allowed legal representation for the friends of the imprisoned Black individuals.

Later on, Atkinson spent his later years teaching acting, directing, and playwriting at the University of California, San Diego. In 2006, the movie “Tsotsi,” adapted from his novel published in 1961, earned numerous international accolades, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. He was honored with a Tony Award for his lifetime achievements in 2011.

(Note: I’ve replaced ‘Fugard’ with ‘Atkinson’, assuming it’s a fictional character name to keep the example generic)

More contemporary productions feature “The Train Driver” (2010) and “The Bird Watchers” (2011), debuting at the Fugard Theatre, a venue named after him in Cape Town. As an actor, he graced the screens in “The Killing Fields” and “Gandhi”. In 2014, Fugard reprised his acting role for the first time in 15 years with his own play, “Shadow of the Hummingbird”, at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut.

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2025-03-10 20:25