As SA’s most decorated playwright, Athol Fugard, takes to the stage for the last time, he explains why he will never lose his optimism for the country’s future, writes David Smith.
In his first performance back on a Johannesburg stage, 82-year-old Athol Fugard is a white-bearded, cardigan-clad dynamo, crackling and fizzing with theatrical life force. Later that August night, leaving the Market Theatre, he suddenly looks his age, sunken beneath a flat cap and seeking to exit untrumpeted through the draughty foyer. Perhaps he is pushing himself too far.
But the following morning, in a discreet guesthouse down a discreet street, Fugard is firing again. South Africa’s greatest-ever playwright turns out to be also one of its most likeable. Ebullient and gregarious, sprinkling my name into a few of his answers with never a false note, he settles into a seat on a veranda overlooking a manicured garden, lights a pipe and is interviewed against a ripple of birdsong; it is a scene that could be taken from one of his recent elegiac works.
“Even as we sit here talking, a few of the remaining brain cells are dealing with and thinking about and keeping on a back burner another play I want to write,” he says, smiling. “It’s slowly, slowly surfacing and taking shape.”
See full report in Mail & Guardian
Athol Fugard returns to the Fugard Studio Theatre by public demand in The Shadow of The Hummingbird
Due to overwhelming demand the Fugard Theatre has announced five additional performances of The Shadow of The Hummingbird, the beautiful play, presented by Eric Abraham and the Fugard Theatre, that stars Athol Fugard himself and introduces Marviantos Baker, from 27 to 30 August 2014. This will be the very final chance audiences will have to see this remarkable production.
In The Shadow of The Hummingbird, Fugard takes on the role of Oupa, a retired South African teacher living in self-imposed exile in Southern California, and is joined onstage by Baker, playing his grandson, Boba. During the course of one afternoon spent together, Oupa and Boba leap across a generational divide to teach and be taught, and to be reminded that the transient beauty of the world is seen too briefly through unassuming eyes.
The artistic team includes Fourie (co-director), Mannie Manim (lighting), Saul Radomsky (sets & costume), James Webb (Sound) and Ben du Plessis (Animation)
WHAT: The Shadow of The Hummingbird
WHERE: Fugard Studio Theatre, corner Caledon and Buitekant Streets, District 6, Cape Town 8001
WHEN: from 27 to 30 August at 8pm with one matinee performance on the 27 August at 4pm.
TICKETS: from R110 to R150, are now available via computicket or the Theatre’s box office on 021 461 4554. Advance booking is highly recommended.
Related blog
PHOTO CREDIT: Madelene Cronje and Jess Kramer
