South African anti-apartheid playwright Athol Fugard dies
Entertainment
Fugard produced more than 30 plays
(Web Desk) - Athol Fugard, the South African playwright whose work explored the racial oppressions of apartheid, died at the age of 92.
Throughout six decades, Fugard produced more than 30 plays, to great public and critical acclaim.
Born in 1932 in Middelburg, Cape Province, Athol Fugard was the only child from a father of Irish and English descent and an Afrikaner mother, who ran a teashop and became the main breadwinner of the family. Athol Fugard was 16 when South Africa introduced the apartheid regime in 1948.
His first major play, “The Blood Knot”, premiered in 1961. Set in South Africa, it confronts two brothers who share the same Black mother but have different fathers: one of them can pass as a white man whilst the other is dark-skinned. Following the initial success of the play, it was banned in South Africa and the government made it illegal for interracial casts to play in front of interracial audiences.
That did not hinder Fugard’s determination. He continued to work with multiracial casts and refused to play for white-only audiences.
In the 1960s, he created The Serpent Players, a theatre workshop for Black comedians that launched the careers of future South African stars John Kani and Winston Ntshona.
Many of Fugard’s co-workers were jailed for their theatrical activities. Due to his race, Fugard avoided prison, but his dissidence still made him the target of government surveillance and persecution.
In 1967, after “The Blood Knot” was broadcast on British television, Fugard’s passport was confiscated, and he was unable to leave the country for several years.
