The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard: From South Africa to the World

Wertheim, Albert

ISBN 10: 0253338239 ISBN 13: 9780253338235

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2000

Synopsis

"Albert Wertheim’s study of Fugard’s plays is both extremely insightful and beautifully written... This book is aimed not only at teachers, students, scholars, and performers of Fugard but also at the person who simply loves going to see a Fugard play at the theatre." —Nancy Topping Bazin, Eminent Scholar and Professor Emerita, Old Dominion University

Athol Fugard is considered one of the most brilliant, powerful, and theatrically astute of modern dramatists. The energy and poignancy of his work have their origins in the institutionalized racism of his native South Africa, and more recently in the issues facing a new South Africa after apartheid. Albert Wertheim analyzes the form and content of Fugard’s dramas, showing that they are more than a dramatic chronicle of South African life and racial problems. Beginning with the specifics of his homeland, Fugard’s plays reach out to engage more far-reaching issues of human relationships, race and racism, and the power of art to evoke change. The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard demonstrates how Fugard’s plays enable us to see that what is performed on stage can also be performed in society and in our lives; how, inverting Shakespeare, Athol Fugard makes his stage the world.

About this title

About the Author:

Albert Wertheim is Professor of English and of Theatre and Drama at Indiana University. He has published widely on modern and classic British and American drama and on post-colonial writing; directed several NEH seminars on politics in the theatre and on new literatures from Africa, the West Indies, and the Pacific; and served on the editorial boards of American Drama, Theatre Survey, South African Theatre Journal, and Westerly.

Review:

Wertheim (Indiana Univ.) identifies South African playwright Athol Fugard as arguably the most distinguished living English—language playwright. Some of Fugard's best—known plays include The Blood Knot, Sizwe Bans Is Dead, A Lesson from Aloes, and Master Harold.. and the Boys, and Wertheim notes in his introduction that he has seen performances of almost all of Fugard's canon (the exceptions: No—Good Friday, Nongogo, and Dimetos). The subject of Fugard's plays is often the human toll [that] racism leaves in its wake, wherever it is practiced. According to Wertheim, one of the larger, existential truths of Fugard's plays is the capacity of humankind not only to endure but to transcend its tragic fate; Fugard's parabolic style enables him to provide a general insight open to many applications. Wertheim's study has two particular strengths (among many): its insight into the evolution of the playwright, especially the influence of Albert Camus, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett on Fugard's canon, and its illumination of the symbolic props in the plays, e.g., the shoes and stockings in People Are Living There. An authoritative work superbly written, this book is well suited to upper—division undergraduates and above.T. L. Jackson, St. Cloud State University, Choice, November 2001

(T. L. Jackson, St. Cloud State University Choice 2001-01-00)

"Wertheim's study has two particular strengths (among many): its insight into the evolution of the playwright, especially the influence of Albert Camus, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett on Fugard's canon, and its illumination of the symbolic props in the plays, e.g., the shoes and stockings in People Are Living There. An authoritative work superbly written, this book is well suited to upper-division undergraduates and above." —Choice, November 2001

(Choice 2001-01-00)

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0253338239
• ISBN 13: 9780253338235
• Binding: Library Binding
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296