Playwright Athol Fugard, known for his indictment of South African apartheid in plays such as Blood Knot, passed away March 8 after a cardiac event. The news was confirmed by his wife, Paula Fourie, to He was 92. He died in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Over his life, he wrote over 30 plays. As Mr. Fugard once told 半岛体育 of why he has dedicated his career to documenting apartheid and its injustices, he responded: "In South Africa, a lot of people want to run away from anything that resembles reality, to just sit back and watch Noel Coward," said Mr. Fugard. "Theatre is one of the ways in which society deals with its pain, its conscience. Theatre and all the arts, however, played a major role in the fight against apartheid."
Mr. Fugard was born in June 11, 1932 in Middelburg, South Africa. By 1935, his family moved to Port Elizabeth, where he attended Marist Brothers College. Mr. Fugard studied philosophy and social anthropology at the University of Cape Town, but dropped out before graduating.
While working in east Asia on a steamer ship, Mr. Fugard began writing. He documented these early stages of his career in his 1999 play The Captain鈥檚 Tiger: a memoir for the stage. After returning to South Africa, Mr. Fugard worked as a freelance reporter for the Evening Post.
In 1956, he married Sheila Fugard (n茅e Meiring), an actor with whom he founded the theatrical workshop Circle Players in Port Elizabeth. For the group, Mr. Fugard wrote his first play, Klaas and the Devil. By 1958, he organized a multiracial theatre, where he worked as a playwright, director, and actor鈥攈is work there included No-Good Friday and Nongogo.
Mr. Fugard's work eventually attracted the attention of New York producers. The first of Mr. Fugard鈥檚 plays to open on Broadway was the dual plays Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island (1974), which he wrote with South African actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona鈥攖he two plays ran in repertory at the Edison Theatre. Mr. Fugard also directed the work. The two plays earned Mr. Fugard his first Tony nominations, for Best Play and Best Direction of a Play.
It was Mr. Fugard's 1961 play, The Blood Knot (later renamed Blood Knot) that earned him widespread recognition. The work premiered in 1961 in Johannesburg, South Africa, with Mr. Fugard starring alongside Zakes Mokae. It later moved to Off-Broadway鈥檚 Cricket Theatre in 1964 (a run produced by Lucille Lortel). Then in 1986, the play was revived on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre, with Mr. Fugard directing and starring, alongside Mokae. The two-hander follows two brothers, Morris and Zachariah, who live in a small, segregated South African town. They share the same father, but different mothers, making one brother white-passing and one not. Though the brothers鈥� bond runs deep, their relationship is complicated by the racial divide in South Africa. Blood Knot earned a Tony nomination for Best Play.
In 1980, Mr. Fugard鈥檚 novel, Tsotsi was published鈥攖hough he wrote it years earlier. Set in Johannesburg, the novel follows a young man who steals a car, only to discover a baby in the backseat. The novel was eventually adapted into a movie in 2005, which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
In 1982, Mokae and Mr. Fugard again collaborated, this time on the play 鈥淢aster Harold鈥�...and the Boys. The coming-of-age story, set in South Africa, follows a white teenager and the two Black men who work for his family and who act as surrogate parents to the boy. Mr. Fugard received two Tony nominations, for Best Play and Best Direction of a Play. The play was banned in South Africa.
The South African government also withdrew Mr. Fugard鈥檚 passport for four years, preventing him from leaving the country. His outspoken support of the Anti-Apartheid Movement鈥檚 boycott of segregated theatre audiences led to further restriction by the South African government, and surveillance of his family and his theatre company鈥攖hough he continued to produce underground theatre and his plays were produced abroad.
As Mr. Fugard recalled to 半岛体育 in 2000: "[The government] targeted those of us鈥攊ntellectuals and artists鈥攚ho found ourselves the dissident voices within the society. At that point in time, the early 80s, violent resistance to apartheid had not yet started. Even though I was always a loner and never committed myself to a political party, I was harassed with midnight searches, heard that my play had been banned, or discovered that my telephone had been tapped. Others who were more politically committed were subjected to house arrests and detentions without trials, and in many cases torture."
In 1989, after over a decade without a South African premiere, Mr. Fugard reemerged with My Children! My Africa. Then in the '90s, as apartheid was abolished, he dramatized South Africa's transition to democracy, in plays such as My Life, Playland, and Valley Song.
The most recent of Mr. Fugard's Broadway credits was a revival of 鈥淢aster Harold鈥�...and the Boys in 2003 and The Road to Mecca in 2012.
In 2010, The Fugard Theatre opened in Cape Town, South Africa, in Mr. Fugard鈥檚 honor. The theatre has since closed and reopened as the District Six Homecoming Centre鈥攂ut the Fugard Theatre鈥檚 archive moved .
Mr. Fugard received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre in 2011. His other awards included an Obie Award for Boesman and Lena, a Drama Desk Award for "Master Herald", and a Lucille Lortel Award for his body of work.
For decades, Mr. Fugard split his time between America and South Africa, teaching for many years at the University of California, San Diego and Indiana University. In 2012, returned to live in South Africa full-time. He divorced his first wife, Sheila Fugard in 2015; she stayed in America. Mr. Fugard remarried his second wife, Paula Fourie, in 2016; she is a playwright and academic.
In response to Mr. Fugard's passing, South Africa's Minister of Sport, Arts, and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, said in a statement: 鈥淪outh Africa has lost one of its greatest literary and theatrical icons, whose work shaped the cultural and social landscape of our nation. In a world divided by race, Fugard nurtured the careers of acting legends like Dr John Kani and Winston Ntshona, and was one of the founding fathers of the Market Theatre, which is today owned by government through the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture,鈥� said McKenzie. 鈥淗e sacrificed so many of his privileges to tell the story of South African pain under apartheid with honesty and bravery.鈥�
McKenzie also added: 鈥淲e 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.鈥�
Mr. Fugard is survived by his wife, Paula Fourie; his children Lisa Fugard, Halle Fugard, and Lanigan Fugard; and a grandson.
