Latest news with #MasterHarold
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Athol Fugard, South Africa's Giant Playwright, Dies at 92
Athol Fugard, South Africa's foremost dramatist who explored the pervasiveness of apartheid in such searing works as The Blood Knot and 'Master Harold'… and the Boys to show how the racist system distorted the humanity of his country with what he called 'a daily tally of injustice,' has died. He was 92. The South African government confirmed Fugard's death and said South Africa 'has lost one of its greatest literary and theatrical icons, whose work shaped the cultural and social landscape of our nation.' More from The Hollywood Reporter D'Wayne Wiggins, Founding Member of the R&B Group Tony! Toni! Tone!, Dies at 64 Video Shows Kimberly Burch Jumping From '80s Cruise; Faster Pussycat Performances Canceled Onboard Gene Hackman Survived in Home Alone With Advanced Alzheimer's for a Week After Wife's Death Six of Fugard's plays landed on Broadway, including The Blood Knot and two productions of 'Master Harold'… and the Boys. The Blood Knot tells of how the relationship between two Black half-brothers deteriorates because one has lighter skin and can pass for white, which ultimately leads to him treating his darker half-brother as an inferior. 'We were cursed with apartheid but blessed with great artists who shone a light on its impact and helped to guide us out of it. We owe a huge debt to this late, wonderful man,' South African Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie said of Fugard. Because Fugard's best-known plays center on the suffering caused by the apartheid policies of South Africa's white-minority government, some among Fugard's audience abroad were surprised to find he was white himself. He challenged the apartheid government's segregation laws by collaborating with Black actors and writers, and The Blood Knot — where he played the light-skinned brother — was believed to be the first major play in South Africa to feature a multiracial cast. Fugard became a target for the government and his passport was taken away for four years after he directed a Black theater workshop, 'The Serpent Players.' Five workshop members were imprisoned on Robben Island, where South Africa kept political prisoners during apartheid, including Nelson Mandela. Fugard and his family endured years of government surveillance; their mail was opened, their phones tapped, and their home subjected to midnight police searches. Fugard told an interviewer that the best theater in Africa would come from South Africa because the 'daily tally of injustice and brutality has forced a maturity of thinking and feeling and an awareness of basic values I do not find equaled anywhere in Africa.' He viewed his work as an attempt to sabotage the violence of apartheid. 'The best sabotage is love,' he said. 'Master Harold'… and the Boys is a Tony Award-nominated work set in a South African tea shop in 1950. It centers on the relationship between the son of the white owner and two Black servants who have served as his surrogate parents. One rainy afternoon, the bonds between them are stressed to breaking point when the teenage boy begins to abuse the servants. 'In plain words, just get on with your job,' the boy tells one servant. 'My mother is right. She's always warning me about allowing you to get too familiar. Well, this time you've gone too far. It's going to stop right now. You're only a servant in here, and don't forget it.' Anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu was in the audience when the play opened in 1983 — at the height of apartheid. 'I thought it was something for which you don't applaud. The first response is weeping,' Tutu, who died in 2021, said after the final curtain. 'It's saying something we know, that we've said so often about what this country does to human relations.' In a review of one play in 1980, TIME magazine said Fugard's work 'indicts the impoverishment of spirit and the warping distortion of moral energy' that engulfed both Blacks and whites in apartheid South Africa. Fugard was born in Middleburg in the semiarid Karoo on June 11, 1932. His father was an English-Irish man whose joy was playing jazz piano. His mother was Afrikaans, descended from South Africa's early Dutch-German settlers, and earned the family's income by running a store. Fugard said his first trip into Johannesburg's Black enclave of Sophiatown — since destroyed and replaced with a white residential area — was 'a definitive event of my life. I first went in there as the result of an accident. I suddenly encountered township life.' This ignited Fugard's longstanding urge to write. He left the University of Cape Town just before he would have graduated in philosophy because 'I had a feeling that if I stayed I might be stuck into academia.' Fugard's theater experience was confined to acting in a school play until 1956, when he married actor Sheila Meiring and began concentrating on stage writing. He and Meiring later divorced. He married second wife Paula Fourie in 2016. He took a job in 1958 as a clerk with a Johannesburg Native Commissioner's Court, where Black people who broke racial laws were sentenced, 'one every two minutes.' Fugard said he was broke and needed the job, but it included witnessing the caning of lawbreakers. 'It was the darkest period of my life,' he said. He got some satisfaction in putting a small wrench in the works, by 'shuffling up the charge sheets,' delaying proceedings enough for friends of the Black detainees to get them lawyers. 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, 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 named after him in Cape Town. As an actor, he appeared in the films The Killing Fields and Gandhi. In 2014, Fugard returned to the stage as an actor for the first time in 15 years in his own play, Shadow of the Hummingbird, at the Long Wharf in New Haven, Connecticut. Best of The Hollywood Reporter From 'Lady in the Lake' to 'It Ends With Us': 29 New and Upcoming Book Adaptations in 2024 Meet the Superstars Who Glam Up Hollywood's A-List Rosie O'Donnell on Ellen, Madonna, Trump and 40 Years in the Queer Spotlight
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Athol Fugard Dies: South African Playwright & ‘Tsotsi' Writer Was 92
Athol Fugard, the Blood Knot, Master Harold… and the Boys and Tsotsi writer who is widely regarded as South Africa's greatest ever playwright, has died. He was 92. According to AP, the South African government has confirmed Fugard's death and said South Africa 'has lost one of its greatest literary and theatrical icons, whose work shaped the cultural and social landscape of our nation.' A cause of death was not given. More from Deadline 2025 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries George Lowe Dies: Space Ghost Voice Actor Was 67 Michelle Trachtenberg Cause Of Death To Remain Undetermined After Family Declines Autopsy 'We were cursed with apartheid but blessed with great artists who shone a light on its impact and helped to guide us out of it. We owe a huge debt to this late, wonderful man,' South African Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie said of Fugard, as reported by AP. South African movie producer Anant Singh called Fugard a 'national treasure.' 'Athol's passing leaves a huge void in the South African theatre landscape, but he leaves a rich legacy of thought-provoking works for generations to come,' he added. Born in 1932, Fugard is widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright, and he was called 'the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world' by Time in 1985. He published more than 30 plays and many of them were political in nature, searingly opposed to the South African apartheid, which ended when Nelson Mandela became President in 1994. Six of Fugard's plays ended up on Broadway, including The Blood Knot and two productions of Master Harold… and the Boys. The former tells of how the relationship between two Black half-brothers deteriorates because one has lighter skin and can pass for white, while the semi-autobiographical latter depicts how institutionalized racism, bigotry or hatred can become absorbed by those who live under it. Fugard also wrote the novel Tsotsi about a young street thug who steals a car only to discover a baby in the back seat, which was made into a movie by Gavin Hood and won the 2006 Oscar for Best International Feature. His other works included The Road to Mecca, My Children! My Africa! and, most recently, Concerning the Life of Babyboy Kleintjies. He is survived by his wife, the playwright Paula Fourie, and three children. Best of Deadline 2025 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery
Los Angeles Times
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Athol Fugard, South African theater artist whose works confronted apartheid, dies at 92
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Athol Fugard, South Africa's foremost dramatist who explored the pervasiveness of apartheid in such searing works as 'The Blood Knot' and ''Master Harold' … and the Boys' to show how the racist system distorted the humanity of his country with what he called 'a daily tally of injustice,' has died. He was 92. The South African government confirmed Fugard's death and said South Africa 'has lost one of its greatest literary and theatrical icons, whose work shaped the cultural and social landscape of our nation.' Six of Fugard's plays landed on Broadway, including 'The Blood Knot' and two productions of ''Master Harold'... and the Boys.' 'The Blood Knot' tells of how the relationship between two Black half-brothers deteriorates because one has lighter skin and can pass for white, which ultimately leads to him treating his darker half-brother as an inferior. 'We were cursed with apartheid but blessed with great artists who shone a light on its impact and helped to guide us out of it. We owe a huge debt to this late, wonderful man,' South African Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie said of Fugard. Because Fugard's best-known plays center on the suffering caused by the apartheid policies of South Africa's white-minority government, some among Fugard's audience abroad were surprised to find he was white himself. He challenged the apartheid government's segregation laws by collaborating with Black actors and writers, and 'The Blood Knot' — where he played the light-skinned brother — was believed to be the first major play in South Africa to feature a multiracial cast. Fugard became a target for the government and his passport was taken away for four years after he directed a Black theater workshop, 'The Serpent Players.' Five workshop members were imprisoned on Robben Island, where South Africa kept political prisoners during apartheid, including Nelson Mandela. Fugard and his family endured years of government surveillance; their mail was opened, their phones tapped, and their home subjected to midnight police searches. Fugard told an interviewer that the best theater in Africa would come from South Africa because the 'daily tally of injustice and brutality has forced a maturity of thinking and feeling and an awareness of basic values I do not find equaled anywhere in Africa.' He viewed his work as an attempt to sabotage the violence of apartheid. 'The best sabotage is love,' he said. ''Master Harold'... and the Boys' is a Tony Award-nominated work set in a South African tea shop in 1950. It centers on the relationship between the son of the white owner and two Black servants who have served as his surrogate parents. One rainy afternoon, the bonds between them are stressed to a breaking point when the teenage boy begins to abuse the servants. 'In plain words, just get on with your job,' the boy tells one servant. 'My mother is right. She's always warning me about allowing you to get too familiar. Well, this time you've gone too far. It's going to stop right now. You're only a servant in here, and don't forget it.' Anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu was in the audience when the play opened in 1983 — at the height of apartheid. 'I thought it was something for which you don't applaud. The first response is weeping,' Tutu, who died in 2021, said after the final curtain. 'It's saying something we know, that we've said so often about what this country does to human relations.' In a review of one play in 1980, TIME magazine said Fugard's work 'indicts the impoverishment of spirit and the warping distortion of moral energy' that engulfed both Blacks and whites in apartheid South Africa. Fugard was born in Middleburg in the semiarid Karoo on June 11, 1932. His father was an English-Irish man whose joy was playing jazz piano. His mother was Afrikaans, descended from South Africa's early Dutch-German settlers, and earned the family's income by running a store. Fugard said his first trip into Johannesburg's Black enclave of Sophiatown — since destroyed and replaced with a white residential area — was 'a definitive event of my life. I first went in there as the result of an accident. I suddenly encountered township life.' This ignited Fugard's longstanding urge to write. He left the University of Cape Town just before he would have graduated in philosophy because 'I had a feeling that if I stayed I might be stuck into academia.' Fugard's theater experience was confined to acting in a school play until 1956, when he married actor Sheila Meiring and began concentrating on stage writing. He and Meiring later divorced. He married second wife Paula Fourie in 2016. He took a job in 1958 as a clerk with a Johannesburg Native Commissioner's Court, where Black people who broke racial laws were sentenced, 'one every two minutes.' Fugard said he was broke and needed the job, but it included witnessing the caning of lawbreakers. 'It was the darkest period of my life,' he said. He got some satisfaction in putting a small wrench in the works, by 'shuffling up the charge sheets,' delaying proceedings enough for friends of the Black detainees to get them lawyers. 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, 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 named after him in Cape Town. As an actor, he appeared in the films 'The Killing Fields' and 'Gandhi.' In 2014, Fugard returned to the stage as an actor for the first time in 15 years in his own play, 'Shadow of the Hummingbird,' at the Long Wharf in New Haven, Connecticut. —— Kennedy reported from New York. Kennedy and Imray write for the Associated Press.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
South Africa's giant playwright Athol Fugard, whose searing works challenged apartheid, dies aged 92
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Athol Fugard, South Africa's foremost dramatist who explored the pervasiveness of apartheid in such searing works as "The Blood Knot" and "'Master Harold'... and the Boys," has died. He was 92. The South African government confirmed Fugard's death and said the country 'has lost one of its greatest literary and theatrical icons, whose work shaped the cultural and social landscape of our nation.' Six of Fugard's plays landed on Broadway, including two productions of ''Master Harold'... and the Boys,' in 1982 and 2003. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Because Fugard's best-known plays center on the suffering caused by the apartheid policies of South Africa's white-minority government, some among Fugard's audience abroad were surprised to find he was white himself. ''Master Harold'... and the Boys' is a Tony Award-nominated work set in a South African tea shop in 1950. It centers on the relationship between the son of the white owner and two Black servants who have served as surrogate parents. One rainy afternoon, the bonds between the characters are stressed to breaking point when the young man begins to abuse his elders. 'In plain words, just get on with your job," the boy tells one servant. "My mother is right. She's always warning me about allowing you to get too familiar. Well, this time you've gone too far. It's going to stop right now. You're only a servant in here, and don't forget it.' When it opened in Johannesburg in 1983 — at the height of apartheid — in the audience was anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu. "I thought it was something for which you don't applaud. The first response is weeping," Tutu, who died in 2021, said after the final curtain. 'It's saying something we know, that we've said so often about what this country does to human relations.' "The Road to Mecca," with its three white characters, touches on apartheid of a different sort. It concerns an adventurous artist named Miss Helen, at odds with and cut off from the rigid and unyielding Afrikaners around her. It's her eccentric artwork that severs her from society and makes her the subject of a fight for control. A production opened in San Francisco in 2023, prompting the San Francisco Chronicle's theater critic to note that 'its central concern — how to deal with people who are aging and alone — feels ripe for our own moment of declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy amid a fraying social safety net.' Fugard once told an interviewer that the best theater in Africa would come from South Africa because the country's "daily tally of injustice and brutality has forced a maturity of thinking and feeling and an awareness of basic values I do not find equaled anywhere in Africa." Fugard was born in Middleburg in the semiarid Karoo on June 11, 1932. His father was an English-Irish man whose joy was playing jazz piano. His mother was Afrikaans, descended from South Africa's early Dutch-German settlers, and earned the family's income by running a store. Fugard said his first trip into Johannesburg's Black enclave of Sophiatown — since destroyed and replaced with a white residential area — was "a definitive event of my life. I first went in there as the result of an accident. I suddenly encountered township life." This ignited Fugard's longstanding urge to write. He left the University of Cape Town just before he would have graduated in philosophy because "I had a feeling that if I stayed I might be stuck into academia." Fugard became a target for the apartheid government and his passport was taken away for four years after he directed a Black theater 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; their mail was opened, their phones tapped, and their home subjected to midnight police searches. He hitchhiked through Africa in 1953 with South African poet Perseus Adams, and ended up working as a sailor, the only white seaman on his ship. Fugard's theater experience was confined to acting in a school play until 1956, when he married actor Sheila Meiring and began concentrating on stage writing. He and Meiring later divorced. He married second wife Paula Fourie in 2016. He took a job in 1958 as a clerk with a Johannesburg Native Commissioner's Court, where Black people who broke racial laws were sentenced, 'one every two minutes.' "We were absolutely broke. I needed a job and I needed information on the pass system," Fugard said. His job included witnessing the caning of lawbreakers. 'It was the darkest period of my life.' He got some satisfaction in putting a small wrench in the works, by "shuffling up the charge sheets," delaying proceedings enough for friends of the Black detainees to get them lawyers. Fugard wrote, directed and acted in his early productions. On the eve of the opening of "A Lesson From Aloes," at Johannesburg's Market Theater, Fugard dismissed one of the three performers and took the role himself. 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, 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.' In 2014, Fugard returned to the stage as an actor for the first time in 15 years in his own play, 'Shadow of the Hummingbird,' at the Long Wharf in New Haven, Connecticut. —— Kennedy reported from New York.
Wall Street Journal
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Remembering Athol Fugard, Whose Plays Exposed Apartheid's Cruelty
All great playwrights make their mark upon the world through their distinctive gifts. But few could claim to have an impact on the political and social structures of their countries. The South African playwright and actor Athol Fugard, who died on March 8 at age 92, is the extraordinarily rare artist for whom one could make such lofty assertions. Mr. Fugard wrote more than 30 plays, beginning in the late 1950s, when the cruel social divisions of apartheid were at their height. Despite facing governmental oppression and attempts to suppress his work, Mr. Fugard took as his primary subject the destructive effects apartheid had on the 'coloured' (mixed race) and black populations of the country, but also the moral rot that it inculcated in the country's white population, perhaps most famously in his masterwork, ''Master Harold' . . . and the Boys,' first seen on Broadway in 1982 and subsequently revived there in 2003—notably after apartheid had finally been dismantled.
