Latest news with #AtholFugard
Mail & Guardian
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Mail & Guardian
Tsotsi star Presley Chweneyagae dies at 40
Presley Chweneyagae, the acclaimed actor who captured hearts worldwide with his powerful portrayal in Tsotsi. South Africa is mourning the death of Presley Chweneyagae, the acclaimed actor who captured hearts worldwide with his powerful portrayal in Tsotsi . He died on 27 May 2025, at the age of 40, exactly two decades after the film's release. A statement from his agency Moonyeenn Lee Associates read: 'It is with profound sadness that we confirm the untimely passing of one of South Africa's most gifted and beloved actors, Presley Chweneyagae, at the age of 40.' Born on 19 October 1984, in Mafikeng, Chweneyagae's journey into acting began in his youth. Encouraged by his mother, he honed his craft at a drama school led by renowned playwright Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom. His breakthrough came in 2005 when he was cast as David, known as Tsotsi, in Gavin Hood's adaptation of Athol Fugard's novel. The film, set in Johannesburg's Alexandra township, tells the story of a hardened gang leader who undergoes a profound transformation after inadvertently kidnapping a baby. Chweneyagae's performance was lauded for its depth and authenticity. Tsotsi won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards, marking a significant achievement for South African cinema. In addition, Chweneyagae received the Black Movie Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. His portrayal resonated globally, earning him recognition at various international film festivals. Following his success in Tsotsi , Chweneyagae continued to build a diverse career in both film and television. He appeared in notable theatre performances, such as Hamlet , Julius Caesar and Beautiful Things . On television, he gained acclaim for his role in the telenovela The River as Cobra , where his portrayal earned him a Golden Horn at the South African Film and Television Awards. Condolences from the people in the industry and government are pouring in, with Gauteng MEC for education, sport, arts, culture and recreation Matome Chiloane saying: 'On behalf of the people of Gauteng, we extend our heartfelt condolences to the Chweneyagae family, friends and the entire performing arts industry. May his soul rest in eternal peace.' Chweneyagae's death is a profound loss to the South African entertainment industry and the global arts community. His legacy endures through his memorable performances and his dedication to social causes. As we reflect on his contributions, we remember a talented actor who used his platform to tell compelling stories and inspire the world commemorates the 20th anniversary of Tsotsi , we honour Presley Chweneyagae's memory and the indelible mark he left on the world of cinema.
Washington Post
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
South African actor Presley Chweneyagae, who starred in Oscar-winning film 'Tsotsi', dies aged 40
JOHANNESBURG — Presley Chweneyagae, the South African actor who gained international recognition for his leading role in the 2005 film 'Tsotsi', which won South Africa's first ever Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, has died. He was 40 years old. His talent agency MLA on Tuesday confirmed Chweneyagae's death and said South Africa had lost one of its 'most gifted and beloved actors.' 'His passion for empowering the next generation of artists will remain integral to his legacy,' MLA CEO Nina Morris Lee said in a statement. She gave no details about the cause of death. Chweneyagae's three-decade-long career spanned theatre, television, and film. His award-winning performance in 'Tsotsi,' based on the 1961 novel by South Africa's preeminent playwright Athol Fugard and directed by Gavin Hood, catapulted him to international stardom. Chweneyagae was also a gifted writer and director, co-authoring the internationally acclaimed stage play 'Relativity' with Paul Grootboom. The South African government paid tribute to Chweneyagae, lauding his outstanding contribution to the film, television and theatre fraternity. 'The nation mourns the loss of a gifted storyteller whose talent lit up our screens and hearts,' the government said in a post on X. 'Your legacy will live on through the powerful stories you told.' The South Africa Film and Television Awards organization, known as SAFTA, paid tribute to Chweneyagae, calling him a 'true legend of South African Cinema' on X. 'Rest in Power … a powerhouse performer whose talent left an indelible mark on our screens and in our hearts,' SAFTA posted. The secretary general of the ANC, the party that dominated South African politics for 30 years, offered his condolences. Fikile Mbalula described Chweneyagae as a 'giant of South African film and theatre.' 'His legacy in 'Tsotsi,' 'The River,' and beyond will live on. Condolences to his family, friends, and all who were touched by his brilliance,' Mbalula said.
Associated Press
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
South African actor Presley Chweneyagae, who starred in Oscar-winning film 'Tsotsi', dies aged 40
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Presley Chweneyagae, the South African actor who gained international recognition for his leading role in the 2005 film 'Tsotsi', which won South Africa's first ever Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, has died. He was 40 years old. His talent agency MLA on Tuesday confirmed Chweneyagae's death and said South Africa had lost one of its 'most gifted and beloved actors.' 'His passion for empowering the next generation of artists will remain integral to his legacy,' MLA CEO Nina Morris Lee said in a statement. She gave no details about the cause of death. Chweneyagae's three-decade-long career spanned theatre, television, and film. His award-winning performance in 'Tsotsi,' based on the 1961 novel by South Africa's preeminent playwright Athol Fugard and directed by Gavin Hood, catapulted him to international stardom. Chweneyagae was also a gifted writer and director, co-authoring the internationally acclaimed stage play 'Relativity' with Paul Grootboom. The South African government paid tribute to Chweneyagae, lauding his outstanding contribution to the film, television and theatre fraternity. 'The nation mourns the loss of a gifted storyteller whose talent lit up our screens and hearts,' the government said in a post on X. 'Your legacy will live on through the powerful stories you told.' The South Africa Film and Television Awards organization, known as SAFTA, paid tribute to Chweneyagae, calling him a 'true legend of South African Cinema' on X. 'Rest in Power … a powerhouse performer whose talent left an indelible mark on our screens and in our hearts,' SAFTA posted. The secretary general of the ANC, the party that dominated South African politics for 30 years, offered his condolences. Fikile Mbalula described Chweneyagae as a 'giant of South African film and theatre.' 'His legacy in 'Tsotsi,' 'The River,' and beyond will live on. Condolences to his family, friends, and all who were touched by his brilliance,' Mbalula said.
The Guardian
17-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Letter: Athol Fugard obituary
In 1988 Athol Fugard was in London, directing his play A Place With the Pigs at the National Theatre. I was its executive director at the time, and asked him what he thought about the theatre world's boycott of apartheid South Africa. He felt it had achieved nothing, other than to do the work of the censor. In his view, banning ideas is what fascist governments have sought to do throughout history. While he understood the motives of playwrights such as Arthur Miller, Edward Albee and Harold Pinter, he felt that all their cultural boycott achieved was to deprive South Africans of ideas, and in particular ideas that might influence attitudes and minds. Athol was not concerned that his was a minority view among even South African writers. It was what he strongly believed.
New York Times
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Athol Fugard's Plays Illustrated the Value of Every Human Life
In early 2010, I was sitting at a communal table in a coffee shop in Cape Town, when I spotted a grizzled, bearded fellow who looked strangely familiar. It was Athol Fugard, South Africa's foremost playwright and the great chronicler of his country's apartheid past. There he was, sipping a cup of coffee like any ordinary person. I plucked up courage and approached him, murmuring something inarticulate about my admiration for his writing. 'Hall-O,' Fugard said enthusiastically. 'Join us. Have a coffee. Or a glass of wine.' One of the great things about Fugard, who died on Saturday, was that he was an ordinary person as well as an extraordinary one. He was wonderfully enthusiastic about people and their potential, ready to see the good in every situation, but also unafraid to confront the bad, both in others and himself. The famous scene in ''Master Harold' … and the Boys,' in which the young white protagonist spits in the face of his Black mentor, was, he freely confessed, drawn from his own life. As the theater critic Frank Rich noted in a 1982 New York Times review of the play, Fugard's technique was to uncover moral imperatives 'by burrowing deeply into the small, intimately observed details' of the fallible lives of his characters. My first encounter with Fugard's work was in the early 1980s, when I saw a production of his 1972 play 'Sizwe Banzi Is Dead,' written with Winston Ntshona and John Kani. It's a bleakly comic tale of a man who assumes another identity and assigns his own to a corpse, in order to gain the coveted pass book that the South African authorities required as permission to work. It was a visceral, painful jolt to the soul. I grew up in apartheid South Africa. I knew about passbooks, about the police hammering on the door at night, about the dehumanizing, demeaning way Black people were treated. But the humanity and warmth of Fugard's writing, the complex reality of his characters, made the cruelty of South Africa's racist regime an excruciating truth. In 2010, Fugard was living in San Diego, but had returned to Cape Town to rehearse a new play, 'The Train Driver,' before its premiere at the newly built Fugard Theater, which the producer and philanthropist Eric Abraham had named after the playwright. The Fugard, which was to become a vibrant beacon on the South African arts scene, was located in District Six, a formerly mixed-race area that was declared a 'whites only' neighborhood by the apartheid government in 1966. (The theater, where numerous works by Fugard were seen over a decade, closed in 2020, a victim of the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns.) 'You will be sitting in the laps of the ghosts of the people who couldn't be here,' Fugard said on opening night. Fugard's plays are in great part about those ghosts, an attempt to bear witness to forgotten and unknown lives and to the moral blindness and blinkered vision of the reality engendered and perpetuated by apartheid. His best-known works — 'Blood Knot,' 'Boesman and Lena,' 'The Island,' 'The Road to Mecca,' 'Sizwe Banzi,' 'Master Harold' — are mercilessly unsparing about the insidious way that race determines relationships in apartheid South Africa. But they are also deeply humane. 'Moral clarity — in such short supply in South Africa and indeed the world — was what he delivered,' Abraham wrote after the playwright's death last weekend. 'He pointed us to the boxes containing our past and urged us to rifle through them in order to learn more about ourselves.' Fugard understood, Abraham continued, 'that divisions can only be overcome by a realization of a shared humanity, a palpable sense that we must look after one another if we are to make it through an often cruel and unforgiving world.' Fugard moved back to South Africa soon after the Fugard Theater opened, first living in New Bethesda, where 'The Road to Mecca,' about the outsider artist Helen Martins, was set; later he and his wife, Paula Fourie, moved to the university town of Stellenbosch. I met and interviewed him several times over the years; he was sometimes intense, but always jovial, unpretentious, humble. Once he told me that he considered himself an outsider artist, without formal training or a degree, starting to write at a time when no one thought it worthwhile to put a South African story onstage. But by being determinedly local, Fugard transcended the specifics of one country. As Abraham noted, his plays demonstrate the value of every human life. 'Come over for a glass of wine,' Fugard would inevitably say at the end of an interview. I wish I had.
