World-renowned South African Playwright Dies, Aged 92

Africa News

Internationally acclaimed South African playwright, director, and actor, Athol Fugard, died at his home on Sunday after a long illness.  He was 92.

The anti-apartheid figure leaves behind a powerful legacy of works like “Master Harold and the Boys” and “Sizwe Banzi Is Dead" that have shaped theatre in the country.

The South African government confirmed his death saying the country had “lost one of its greatest literary and theatrical icons”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa described him as “the moral conscience of a generation”.

“Beyond the impressive body of work that he has left behind, Athol Fugard will be remembered for being an outlier amongst the millions of white South Africans who blithely turned a blind eye to the injustices being perpetrated in their name,” he said.

Fugard was born in 1932 in a small town in the Eastern Cape.  He studied at the University of Cape Town, where he and his then wife, Sheila Meiring, formed the Circle Players.

The couple later moved to Johannesburg where he worked as a clerk in the Native Commissioner’s Court which would significantly impact his world-view and shape his political consciousness.

He went on to write more than 30 plays over seven decades, his most important in the darkest days of apartheid.

Six of Fugard's plays landed on Broadway, including two productions of “Master Harold and the Boys” in 1982 and 2003.

His best-known plays centre on the suffering caused by the apartheid policies of South Africa's white-minority government.

In this 1997 interview, he speaks about his most personal play, The Captain’s Tiger, an autographical reflection on his memories of his parents.

"During the 40 years of apartheid, I was a very blinkered writer. I had one focus, which was to try and say as much as I could about that terrible system and what it was doing to people," he said.

Fugard became a target for the apartheid government and his passport was taken away for four years after he directed a Black theatre workshop, "The Serpent Players."

Five workshop members were imprisoned on Robben Island, where South Africa kept political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela.

Fugard and his family endured years of government surveillance, having their mail opened, their phones tapped, and their home subjected to midnight police searches.

Later in life, Fugard taught acting, directing, and playwriting at the University of California, San Diego.

In 2006, the film “Tsotsi” based on his 1961 novel about a ruthless gang leader, won international awards, including the Oscar for foreign language film.

He won a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2011.

More recent plays include “The Train Driver" (2010) and “The Bird Watchers” (2011), which both premiered at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town.

As an actor, he appeared in the films “The Killing Fields” and “Gandhi.”