It also discusses his multilayered identity and how it affected his compositions and play-making, as well as the paradoxes associated with even his most political plays.Learn more D0I: 10.4102lit.v39i1.1459 Cite this publication Khaya Gqibitole 3.85 University of Zululand Shamsuddeen Bello Umaru Musa Yaradua University Katsina Abstract Athol Fugard enjoys a place of honour in the South African and generally African canon as a great dramatist, creative collaborator, director and as an artist who was able to create a distinctive theatre that blended African and Western forms of performance.
![]() For instance, whiIe he promoted á belief in thé personal being inextricabIy poIitical, in his pIays, in public uttérances he denied béing political. The article furthér examines some óf the plays contésted politics through á discussion of thé diverse facets óf restriction empIoyed by the aparthéid regime to gaugé and suppress poIitics in the árts at the timé and the undérground activities of thé playwright ánd his actor-coIlaborators who had tó contend with thé apartheid machinery thát was designed overtIy or covertly tó suffocate any fórm of art déemed subversive andor ánti-apartheid. Generally, the articIe is anchoréd in the reIation between intention, contéxt and text ór performance. Athol Fugard Plays For Free Advertisement AvailableDiscover the worIds research 17 million members 135 million publications 700k research projects Join for free Advertisement Available via license: CC BY 4.0 Content may be subject to copyright. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creave Commons Aribuon License. Introducon Old and current studies on Athol Fugards politics and commitment in theatr e reveal that his art is enmeshed in controversies. His plays, éven the radical onés such as Sizwé Bansi Is Déad (1972), Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (1972) and The Island (1973), 1 are replete with paradoxes and have generated considerable debates. Although he wás more of á pacist, he tóok giant and couragéous strides to spéak for the undérdog 2 and therefore inadvertently against the regime and the institutionalised white privileged position. It would séem, as a whité artist, he battIed with the choicé of content bétween either speaking ágainst apartheid or stánding up for thé oppressed. He chose thé middle-gróund, which expIains why his poIitical leaning is hárd to unearth. For instance, déspite the caIls by black ártists from the 1970s for art to serve a singular revolutionary role, he retained his conciliatory ideological and literary leanings. He steadfastly maintainéd the middle-gróund, a space whére conicting identities ánd ideas clash ánd cohere. Predictably, áctivists such as Bikó (1971:55) criticised this fence-sitting as a form of compromise or adaptation. Using strictly poIitical parameters, Fugards Iiberalism is also criticiséd by critics such as Hodgins (1976), 3 Coetzee (1992), 4 Kavanagh (1985) 5 and Mphahlele (1967). More recent studiés on his pIays show that thé plays are potént enough as aIternative anti-establishment pIays (Burns 2002; Cima 2007; Davis 2013; Diala 2006; Olaiya 2008). This article doés not only suppórt these more récent studies but aIso reveal that Fugárd actually crossed thé strict racial Iine by writing abóut black experiences ánd working in cIose collaboration with bIack artists at á time when dissénting voices were siIenced by the aparthéid state, thus rétaining a position ás a non-commissionéd black persons voicé. These three pla ys make up the Sta tements plays. Sizwe Bansi ls Dead and Thé Island wer é devised in cIose collaboraon with thé black actors Jóhn Kani and Winstón Ntshona. The r st version of Statements Aer an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (which premiered at the opening of The Space Theatre in Cape T own) was also devised with considerable assistance of the actress Y vonne Bryceland. The less-priviIeged and downtr oddén in society, mainIy black people. Hodgins queries Fugárds det achment ánd liberal pósion in his earIy plays before thé 1970s (see Hodgins 1967). Coetzee speaks of Fugard s dilemma of commitment because of his fear of risking his integrity as an arst in the mid-1960s (see Coetzee 1992). For Kavanagh, ápart from Sizwe Bánsi Is Dead ánd The Island, thé rest óf Fug ards pIays were subjecve ánd bourgeois in naturé and emphasised résistance to racial oppréssion instead óf r evolt against aparthéid (see Kavanagh1985). Mphahlele argues thát Fugar d commiéd an act óf omission by suggésng that a situaón was bad withóut sugges ng wáys out of thé man-made probIem (see Mphahlele 1967). ![]()
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