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Crossing boundaries: the genesis of the township plays - Athol Fugard Issue
Twentieth Century Literature, Winter, 1993 by Dennis Walder
Within two months the New Brighton group--who named themselves Serpent Players after their first performing space, the old Port Elizabeth snake pit--had held their first reading under Fugard's direction of what was to become a wildly popular township version of Machiavelli's Mandragola, The Cure, which played to one of the first multiracial audiences in Port Elizabeth. Improvisation was the key to Serpent Players' practice; their aim at first simply to entertain. They went on to produce cheaply mounted township versions of classic European drama in venues such as St. Stephen's Hall, without adequate lighting, seats, props, or backstage facilities, rehearsing beforehand in places which allowed them to escape apartheid restrictions--such as an about-to-be-demolished "coloured" school. From the start, the Players (including Fugard), their relatives, and friends came under surveillance, and in December 1964, days before the opening of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Azdak (Welcome Duru), a schoolteacher, was "savagely assaulted by the police in his home (one a.m.) in front of his family, then dragged away to jail crying for mercy" (Notebooks 120). Fugard took over, and the performance proceeded. But within months three more members were arrested: Simon Hanabe, Sipho "Sharkie" Mguqulwa, and Norman Ntshinga--whose role as Haemon had to be taken over by newcomer John Kani.
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The New Brighton group did not collapse. Instead, a new phase of playmaking, without texts or identifiable authors, began. Brecht's Messingkauf Dialogues provided particular inspiration. But it was the events of the time, as they impinged upon the Players, which had most effect. A good indication of their motives is provided by a series of reports written as an exercise on 29 March 1965,(3) in which the remaining Players explained how they had begun by wanting to "understand drama," to "learn how to act" and "appreciate the work of playwrights all over the world," as well as to "get an opportunity of putting across certain truths to my people," as Ngxokolo put it, "because I feel that I have something to say and theatre is an outlet or a medium of self-expression." The Players offered the highest praise for Fugard, whose "dedication and encouragement" had gained their "confidence and respect." Fugard kept the arrested Players informed of the group's progress, and in one reply (datable from the prison censor's signature) Ntshinga reported that he was passing the playwright's letters to the others, "and we are all pleased to learn that the Serpent Players is doing well and striving to uphold the standard we've already set." Ten days later, however, Ntshinga's dream of becoming an actor through his performances in The Cure, Woyzeck, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle was "shattered."
The day you started rehearsing Antigone I was 19 [in] a cell at Walmer [Port Elizabeth]. I did not worry much then as I knew that for a few meetings you would be doing nothing but reading and I hoped that I would be released in time to catch up. . . . I never knew what solitary confinement can do. . . . Any person who has gone through it can assure himself that there is nothing on earth that has still to be done he need dread. But all that is over now. I'm trying to explain that of all the things I'm missing there is nothing I miss like my family and Drama. (Fugard Collection 1965)
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