The apprenticeship years - Athol Fugard Issue

With our savings gone, we were forced to leave our Berea apartment. We found a studio in Braamfontein, a cheaper area, and slept on a mattress on the floor. Every night we took the car seats out of the station wagon, and they became our apartment furniture. We ate sparingly--canned beans, boiled eggs, and French fries. Our life was almost as simple as that of our actors. We were already feeling the pressures of the hard life we had chosen. Often we had no money for gasoline, and had to ask the actors to put in a few cents each so we could take them back to their rooms in the sprawling township area of Johannesburg. With this additional travel, we were rarely in bed before twelve at night.

Rehearsals were grueling. Gladys in particular was painfully slow in learning her lines. Athol was still quite inexperienced as a director, but his great advantage was his enthusiasm for the text, which he conveyed to the cast. Even then Athol was able to get astonishing performances out of these untried actors, who were on a stage for the first time in their lives. For the cast, many of whom struggled with language, rehearsals were also English lessons. Teamwork came naturally to them. No one was a star; everyone was equal. Most important of all, they, like ourselves, wanted to be part of a truly African theatre.

In the third week of rehearsal Stephen Moloi and Dan Poho approached me with troubled looks on their faces. They said they were worried because Athol had not yet written the end of the play. I shared their anxiety, and had, in fact, reminded Athol about this many times during the rehearsal period. There and then I insisted he finish the play. I remember Athol sat down on a wooden box during that rehearsal and wrote the concluding short scene between Willie and Guy.

We had found a sponsor for the opening night at the Bantu Men's Social Centre, the African Feeding Fund. We met the chairman, a middle-aged, well-groomed white South African, Hugh Tatham. When we finally got to our opening night, he was there in the audience with his committee, and had even managed to sell some tickets. Still, the audience was mainly black. Two other white people, who were later to help the show, were there as well. One was the well-known South African actor and theatre critic Bill Brewer, and the other was Benedicta Bonnacorsi, a Johannesburg acting teacher.

The curtain opened on No-Good Friday. Athol and I were both backstage. He was tense and nervous about the reception of the play. I sat with the prompt book, and kept an eye on the entrances of the actors. I was particularly worried about Gladys forgetting her lines. It was a nerve-wracking experience for both of us. Yet the play worked and held the audience's attention. The response was first one of interest, and then applause. The actors fitted naturally into the play and Athol's authentic dialogue. Apart from the earlier poetic experiment of The Cell, it was Athol's first presentation of black South African reality on a public stage.