LAST PLAY?: Athol Fugard oversees rehearsals of his new play with actor Owen Sejake.

Although he now lives in California in the United States, acclaimed playwright Athol Fugard has once again set his latest – and possibly last – play in his home city of Port Elizabeth.

Fugard, 77, who is in Cape Town overseeing rehearsals for his new two-man play The Train Driver at the brand-new theatre in District Six which was named in his honour, set his new play in Motherwell because “I know that world”.

Middelburg-born Fugard moved to Port Elizabeth when he was three and spent much of his life living in the Bay where he worked on character-driven protest theatre with the Serpent Players in the 1960s and later wrote award-winning plays, many of which are set in the city.

His latest play centres on a true incident that occurred in the Western Cape in which a mother, Pumla Lolwana, and her three children died on a railway track in a tragic suicide. The play features well-known South African actors Sean Taylor and Owen Sejake.

In an exclusive interview with Weekend Post, international theatre icon Fugard, whose acclaimed works include Boesman and Lena, People Are Living There, The Road to Mecca and Master Harold and the Boys, said he considered The Train Driver, which has its world premiere on March 24, as the “most important play” he has penned.

“It looks like all my writing experience has led up to the moment. She (Pumla Lolwana, the mother who committed suicide) is a symbol of despair of the daily experience of millions of South Africans living in poverty.”

Fugard, whose earlier plays attacked racial discrimination in South Africa, did not hold back when speaking of his disenchantment with the current socio-political state of his homeland.

“When De Klerk unbanned the ANC and Nelson Mandela was released I experienced an incredible euphoria and felt that a new South Africa had been born, but as the years passed I felt more and more that the promise that was in the air as we stood in queues to vote in our first democratic elections was slowly being betrayed.”

He said the fact that desperate people had embarked on a series of service delivery protests was “a shocking state of affairs”.

“Seventeen years into the new South Africa the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. People are still malnourished, not educated and being ravaged by Aids.”

However, he said being back in South Africa was “always a very, very special experience for me”.

“I feel a sense of renewal after time spent in America – to be back with my people and to be in a new theatre is the cherry on the ice-cream.”

He expressed deep humility about the The Fugard Theatre, which opened last month, being named after him, saying it “embarrassed” him.

“It was a cause of some embarrassment because there are people who are a lot more deserving. I feel undeserving of something as extraordinary and special as that and it was a very emotional experience.

“It made me look back on my writing and see if this was really justified or not. I have decided to use it as a challenge to do better in the next 10 years.”

Fugard, who still writes with a ballpoint pen, because he does not like to “see words on computer screens”, admitted to already having the “seed” of a new play idea in his head, but expressed fears his “heart and circulation issues” could get in the way of creating more work.

“I have serious health concerns which came about because I lived irresponsibly and abused my body with alcohol and tobacco, so it is not inconceivable that this could be my last play …”

On a happier note, Fugard said he loved to visit Port Elizabeth and his home in the Eastern Cape village of Nieu Bethesda.

“I visit PE for the people. It is a gang I really know, man,” said Fugard, who is looking forward to visiting his former domestic worker Regina Nine, who was also his daughter Lisa’s child minder and still lives in Motherwell.

“She looked after us when we lived in Schoenmakerskop and later when we moved to Lovemore Park. She was indispensable to us and loved my daughter.”

Fugard said he and his wife Sheila left PE to settle in southern California after Lisa relocated there.

“For 25 years I had travelled between America, London and South Africa as my plays got chances overseas, so going to America was never a new experience.

“But we decided to leave when Lisa, who lives in Southern California, gave me a grandson six years ago. It was a hard pull between family and my home country, but at my age family won.”

He said Sheila, his wife of “over 50 years”, would be joining him in South Africa soon.

Rehearsals for The Train Driver were at an intense stage as he and the cast were “dealing with pretty emotional material”, said Fugard.

“But I hope I am not tempting the gods when I say that we will have something on stage worth looking at.”

Source: The Herald Online

Other headlines on The Herald Online today:

• Attention at last being paid to wasteful spending of provincial funds
• EP in late fightback for close victory
• Moral debate worthy of support