Tag: Susan Hilferty

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

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.