The Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre
Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard – known by his own choice as “Athol” - was born on 6 November 1932 in Middelburg in the Cape Province , but grew up in Port Elizabeth , which would later become the setting for a number of his plays. After leaving school he enrolled at the University of Cape Town , but dropped out to become a drifter, hitch-hiking through Africa and sailing the world for two years as a deckhand, while absorbing sights and experiences which would help mould his future career.
Working as a court clerk in Johannesburg in 1958, he became increasingly aware of apartheid 's injustice. This was to become the background to most of his work, although he has never been merely a polemicist but is, rather, a keen observer of people and their problems with society. Fugard, who is often compared with Tennessee Williams, once said that in his on case, his “real territory as a dramatist is the world of secrets with their powerful effect on human behaviour and the trauma of their revelation”.
Although Fugard had already done some acting, he yearned for more involvement in theatre, but was frustrated by limited opportunities. He began working with actors like Zakes Mokae and founded a multi-racial theatre group, the Rehearsal Room, with himself as writer-actor-director in classic Shakespearian fashion.
The Rehearsal Room's first production was No Good Friday , featuring Mokae and Fugard himself - a foretaste of the work which was later to stir up a torrent of controversy and incur the wrath of the South African government. In 1959 Fugard staged a second play, Nongogo (Prostitute), before returning to Port Elizabeth to work with another fringe group called The Serpent Players. There he wrote what was to be his first international success, The Blood Knot .
The play so incensed the government that, when it was produced in England in 1961, starring Mokae, Fugard's passport was withdrawn for four years. In 1962 his freedom of movement was restricted even further when he supported an international boycott against segregated audiences, and it was only in 1971 that he was able to visit Britain to direct his famous Boesman and Lena .
Undaunted, Fugard continued to add to his body of work with such plays as A Lesson from Aloes (winner of a New York Critics Circle award in 1980), Master Harold and the Boys , The Island and Sizwe Bansi is Dead , which were performed to great acclaim at theatres in South Africa, Britain, the United States and elsewhere, winning a variety of awards. Fugard also acted in several international films, one role being a portrayal of Field-Marshal Jan Smuts in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi in 1982.
By common consent, Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard is a towering figure of the South African stage. He has brilliantly portrayed his unshakeable beliefs and his strong compassion for all his fellow South Africans in a chain of glittering theatrical tours de force with a message as powerful now as it was in the era that inspired his plays.
