Tag: Athol Fugard

Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, Orange Tree Theatre, 9 March 2019

You wait years for an Athol Fugard to come to London and then, what do you know, two come along at the same time. Like buses, are Athol Fugard plays.

We saw A Lesson From Aloes last week at the Finborough and mighty fine it was too:

A Lesson From Aloes by Athol Fugard, Finborough Theatre, 1 March 2019

Blood Knot at the Orange Tree was also excellent, but if I was only going to see one of these productions, I’d personally choose Aloes, both for the play and for the production.

We saw a preview of Blood Knot, but I think my comments will apply throughout the run.

Blood Knot is a relentlessly grim play. The play is about two half-brothers in Port Elizabeth who are Cape Coloured, to use the hateful vernacular of the South African Apartheid regime. One is light-skinned and could pass for white, while the other is dark-skinned and is more likely to be regarded as black.

The poverty and hopelessness of the brothers’ situation pervades the whole play. The brothers are extremely well portrayed by Nathan McMullen and Kalungi Ssebandeke.

Click here or the picture below for the Orange Tree web resources on this production.

But the play is very slow. Especially the first half. Let’s be honest about this – and I am an Athol Fugard fan saying this – Fugard plays tend to start very slow. Lengthy periods of scene-setting and atmosphere-generating are intrinsic to Fugard’s style.

Blood Knot is especially slow to build. It is an early work and I think Fugard himself would admit that his craft as a playwright improved with experience.

It was a ground-breaking piece in its time; 1961. Fugard himself played Morrie and was testing the boundaries of Apartheid law; loopholes which for a while allowed white and black actors to appear on stage together.

All this and more about the horrible history of racist laws, South African colonialism and the Cape Coloured community are explained in fascinating essays in this production’s programme. I don’t often specifically commend a programme but this one I found hugely informative and interesting.

At the start of the interval, Janie pondered leaving before the second half, but then came round to the idea of seeing the production through.

By the end of the evening, she was really pleased she decided to see the second half – as was I. Still not racey, but the piece makes far more sense as a whole and the second half answers at least some of the questions at a reasonable lick.

Not the very best of Fugard, but still very much worth seeing.

A Lesson From Aloes by Athol Fugard, Finborough Theatre, 1 March 2019

This is a superb production of a terrific play.

I have long been a fan of Athol Fugard’s plays. I started reading them in the mid 1980s when on a play reading spree: The Road To Mecca, Master Harold And the Boys…

…they don’t come around all that often to get sight of them. Yet, like London buses, sometimes two come along at roughly the same time. Next week we’ll go and see another one; Blood Knot at the Orange Tree.

Coincidentally, I have lately been writing up my 1988 theatre visits – which was another period during which two Fugards came along in quick succession – A Place With The Pigs:

A Place With The Pigs by Athol Fugard, Cottesloe Theatre, 20 February 1988

…then Hello And Goodbye:

Hello And Goodbye by Athol Fugard, Almeida Theatre, 6 September 1988

This one, A Lesson From Aloes, was right up there, in my view, as a memorable night of top notch theatre drama.

Janet Suzman has directed a fine cast; Dawid Minnaar, David Rubin and Janine Ulfane, in this wonderfully claustrophobic play, set in the early 1960s, about left-leaning folk in the Eastern Cape having had their lives ruined one way or another by Apartheid.

As is so often the case with Fugard, the political undertones are played out in a drama about family and relationships.

The Finborough is, in my view, an ideal location for this type of play – you can read all about the Finborough production here.

In many ways Janie and I weren’t in the mood for this depth of drama on that Friday evening – we’d both had busier, more tiring weeks than we’d pre-planned – but the sheer quality of the play, performances and staging kept us both gripped throughout.

At the time of writing this production has only just opened and has not yet been formally reviewed, nor is it yet sold out. My advice, if you are reading this in time, is to book early to avoid disappointment. Here’s the link again…

https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/productions/2019/a-lesson-from-aloes.php

…while here is an interesting rehearsal video from this Finborough production:

Janet Suzman was there on that Friday evening (I think the last preview night) so I was pleased to be able to tell her personally that I thought the production was extremely good.

This link should find reviews of the Finborough production.

Dimetos by Athol Fugard, Donmar Warehouse, 21 March 2009

I’m a bit of a fan of Athol Fugard, but this one didn’t quite hit the spot the way many of his plays have done for me in the past. Daisy felt the same way.

It is a revival from 1975 – a selling point to me as I thought Fugard was writing brilliant stuff during that period.

A great line up too, with Jonathan Pryce in the lead role and Douglas Hodge having a go at directing…

…it just didn’t work for us.

As for the critics:

Sizwe Banzi Is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani, Winston Ntshona, Lyttelton Theatre, 24 March 2007

Two weeks in a row to the National Theatre (RNT) and two theatre visits out of three to see John Kani perform in one of his own plays.

This one, a revival of one of the most famous works to come out of the defiant anti-apartheid theatre in South Africa in the 1970s, in some ways pleased us less than Nothing But The Truth at the Hampstead a few weeks earlier. 

Nothing But The Truth by John Kani, Hampstead Theatre, 9 February 2007

Again, we really wanted to like it. We had loved The Island when we saw the revival of that one. But Sizwe Banzi seemed an altogether lighter and more dated work. The play has some great lines and some excellent points to make, but didn’t move us as we felt it should.

Yes, we were glad to have seen it, but it was a bit like seeing a band of ageing rockers whom you wished you had seen “back in the day”. The point was back in the day.

It got pretty good reviews – click here to find them.

Below is a short excerpt of John Kani and Winston Ntshona performing the play back in the day – early 1980s I think.

My Children! My Africa! by Athol Fugard, Lyttelton Theatre, 15 September 1990

I’m very partial to Athol Fugard’s work, but thirty years on, I remember very little about this one. Even the log, which was only a few years after the event, says:

Little recollection, strangely.

I saw this with Bobbie Scully, who seemed keen to see Fugard with me back then. Janie also has a taste for his work.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for this play/production.

I think the problem for me/us was that it was a story that pre-dated Nelson Mandela’s release but we were seeing it very soon after that momentous event. In that sense it felt a bit like old news, although of course the injustices and arguments depicted were still (are still) relevant.

Michael Billington in the Guardian loved it:

Billington on My Children!Billington on My Children! Sat, Sep 8, 1990 – 21 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Michael Coveney in The Observer was less sure, finding it, unusually for Fugard, overly sentimental.

Coveney on My Children!Coveney on My Children! Sun, Sep 9, 1990 – 50 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Hello And Goodbye by Athol Fugard, Almeida Theatre, 6 September 1988

My log says that this play/production was superb and I certainly remember it as so.

The play is one of Fugard’s earliest – a two-hander about a brother and sister in the Eastern Cape; somewhat down-at-heel Afrikaners. Here is a link to a Jhu article about this lesser-known Fugard play.

This might have been my first sight of Tony Sher performing live and it was, I think, my first ever visit to the Almeida Theatre. Those things were oft-repeated after this night.

I don’t think I have ever seen Estelle Kohler perform since, but I recall thinking that her performance, as well as Tony Sher’s, was acting from the very top drawer.

But then what did I know? Or indeed what do I know? Except that, on Googling this production, it seems that both performers picked up Olivier Award nominations for their performances in this one that year – click here.

I saw this production with Bobbie midweek – on a Tuesday – whatever next?

I wonder whether Ivan Shakespeare sold us the programme or ushered us to our seats – I didn’t know him back then, but I believe he was volunteering at the Almeida for many years before I met him through NewsRevue.

The production was actually an RSC thing – a brief exile from the Barbican at the Almeida.

Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry on this production.

Below is Nicholas de Jongh’s Guardian review:

Nicholas de Jongh on Hello & GoodbyeNicholas de Jongh on Hello & Goodbye Tue, Aug 9, 1988 – 17 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Below in Michael Ratcliffe’s Observer review:

Ratclliffe on Hello & GoodbyeRatclliffe on Hello & Goodbye Sun, Aug 7, 1988 – 39 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

This was a really memorable night at the theatre – more than 30 years later, I can still visualise the Johnny and Hester characters hollering at each other – I can still almost feel their pain.

A Place With The Pigs by Athol Fugard, Cottesloe Theatre, 20 February 1988

I rated this play/production superb in my log – I remember it well and fondly.

Jim Broadbent and Linda Bassett were both outstanding – I think this might have been the first time I saw either of them in the theatre and it was, I think, my first experience of seeing an Athol Fugard play performed. If so, it was the first of many in all three cases.

Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this play/production.

No on-line reviews of the production we saw, of course, but there is an almost contemporaneous one from the Yale Rep in 1987, which you can read transcribed here.

Michael Billington didn’t much like it – below is his review clipped:

Billington On PigsBillington On Pigs Thu, Feb 18, 1988 – 21 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Michael Ratcliffe didn’t much like it either – pearls before swine this play/production – Ratcliffe’s review clipped below

Ratcliffe On PigsRatcliffe On Pigs Sun, Feb 21, 1988 – 24 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

The play is about a Russian soldier hiding in a pig sty for many years after the war and possible recriminations for his desertion are over. No doubt it is meant to be a parable with relevance to the Afrikaner position in South Africa.

Frankly, I found it hard to engage too deeply with the parable at the time, but did think it was an interesting and entertaining play, especially in the hands of the talented cast.

Unusually for productions that please me so much, Fugard himself directed this one – I’m not keen on the idea of playwrights directing their own work and usually detect some untrammelled egotism in such productions, but I think Fugard might be an exception to the “don’t direct your own plays” rule of thumb.

Did Bobbie enjoy this one as much as I did? I think so, at the time, but whether it stuck so long in her memory as it did mine is a question I’ll have to ask her.