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The apprenticeship years - Athol Fugard Issue
Twentieth Century Literature, Winter, 1993 by Sheila Fugard
Then it was over. The actors took their curtain call. I urged Athol to go on stage and join them, because the applause was also for him as author. Instead, he pushed me out there. I stood, rather embarrassed, for it was not my play. I was glad to retreat backstage, but our moment of respite was brief. Mr. Tatham was already congratulating the actors, and he whisked us off to a meal at a fashionable restaurant. The meal was a terrible ordeal, particularly as we had to endure the platitudes of Mr. Tatham and his committee. We were both drained and tired. When we finally got home to our Braamfontein studio, we experienced no elation, just the ache and fatigue of work, and that terrible let-down feeling that so often accompanies an opening night.
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We did take No-Good Friday into Soweto. Audiences were dismal. There seemed to be little understanding of theatre. Theatre attendance requires education, a familiarity with being part of an audience. But the townships offered mainly censored movies considered suitable for children and blacks. Still we persisted, and drove into the townships in our battered Jeep station wagon, with the actors crammed inside and our set strapped to the luggage carrier. I remember that at one performance we had only six people. We even took the play to an Indian Cinema in the Pretoria Township, Mamelodi. The area in front of the screen was so small that it was hardly a stage. Yet the actors coped, and we adapted the set. The turnout was quite good. People probably thought they were going to a film, and were surprised to find themselves at a play.
Finally No-Good Friday was seen by white Johannesburg in a single performance at the Brian Brooke Theatre. The role of Father Higgins was played by Lewis Nkosi instead of Athol that night, because the management of the theatre stipulated that the cast should not be racially mixed. The house was full, and the show was considered an event, an evening when liberal Johannesburg acknowledged that black actors performed in a drama about their own world. But no management was prepared to give the play a run. No amateur theatre or school requested the rights. More than a decade later, in 1974, No-Good Friday was performed outside South Africa at the British Crucible Studio in Sheffield. After several more years, the play was once again performed in South Africa.
Athol reminds me that I was both his first and last director. Those were the apprenticeship years. Our marriage could not have contained us both in theatre. We were two strong-willed individualists. What I brought to those early years was the shared vision and the absolute commitment to the work. By the time Athol was writing his next play, Nongogo, he needed other influences. He had found a new inspiration in Tone Brulin, a Belgian theatre director, brought out to South Africa by the National Theatre. Tone was both a director and playwright. Athol sat in on his rehearsals and got a feel for European theatre. This experience broadened his outlook and gave him more confidence in himself. Tone sensed Athol's unique talent. There were township visits with him, and later we went to Brussels, where Tone was helpful in getting Athol work in Dutch theatre. Nongogo also gave Zakes Mokae his first real chance at acting. He was to become an influence, especially when he played with Athol in the ground-breaking The Blood Knot. Another influence was Yvonne Bryceland, the South African actress, who interpreted the major female roles in People Are Living There and Boseman and Lena. Then John Kani became important in Athol's life when he took on the workshop plays, Sizwe Bansi Is Dead and The Island. Athol is always learning. His relationships with his actors are fluid, and dedicated during a production, but then he is ready to move on. The balance in his life between playwright and director is uneasy. They are separate lives. He is almost two different people.
