The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard: From South Africa to the World

by Albert Wertheim

Considered one of the most brilliant, powerful, and theatrically astute of modern dramatists, South African playwright Athol Fugard is best known for The Blood Knot, MASTER HAROLD ...and the boys, A Lesson from Aloes, and Sizwe Bansi Is Dead. The energy and poignancy of Fugard's work have their origins in the institutionalised racism of his native South Africa, and more recently in the issues facing a new South Africa after apartheid. In The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard, Albert Wertheim analyses the form and content of Fugard's dramas, showing that they are more than a dramatic chronicle of South African life and racial problems. Beginning with the specifics of his homeland, Fugard's plays reach out to engage more far-reaching issues of human relationships, race and racism, and the power of art to evoke change. The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard demonstrates how Fugard's plays enable us to see that what is performed on stage can also be performed in society and in our lives; how, inverting Shakespeare, Athol Fugard makes his stage the world.

294 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2001

Reviews

[Leif · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good exercise in close reading and an apologia for things which need little apology.