About the Book:

Detailed analysis of the stage plays of South African playwright Athol Fugard.

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 Athol Fugard's work have their origins in the institutionalized 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, author Albert Wertheim analyzes 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, Athol 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.

What people say:

"Wertheim's study has two particular strengths (among many): its insight into the evolution of the playwright, especially the influence of Albert Camus, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett on Fugard's canon, and its illumination of the symbolic props in the plays, e.g., the shoes and stockings in People Are Living There. An authoritative work superbly written, this book is well suited to upper-division undergraduates and above." — Choice

"Albert Wertheim's study of Fugard's plays is both extremely insightful and beautifully written — a book that held my attention from beginning to end. It was a pleasure to read! Wertheim succeeds in communicating the greatness of Fugard as a playwright, actor, and director. He also conveys well what Fugard has learned from other plays and dramatists. Thus, he places Fugard's 'works not so much in a South African context as in a theatrical context. He also illuminates his interpretations with the help of Fugard's manuscripts, previously available only in South Africa. This book is aimed not only at teachers, students, scholars, and performers of Fugard but also at the person who simply loves going to see a Fugard play at the theatre." — Nancy Topping Bazin, Professor Emeritus, Old Dominion University

About the Author:

Albert Wertheim (1941-2003) was Professor of English and of Theatre and Drama at Indiana University. He published widely on modern and classic British and American drama and on post-colonial writing; directed several National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) seminars on politics in the theatre and on new literature from Africa, the West Indies, and the Pacific; and served on the editorial boards of American Drama, Theatre Survey, South African Theatre Journal, and Westerly.