you and the events in the play, or did you draw more upon what you

saw happening to others?

Fugard: During those early tumultuous years when the Afrikaner

(a South African of Dutch descent) and Nationalist government came

into power and the system of apartheid began to emerge from their

legislation, they piled one evil brick on top of another. Important

choices had to be made. They targeted those of us — intellectuals

and artists — who 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.

Many of my writer friends became artistically impotent once they had

been silenced in that way. What kind of a contribution to the struggle

is that: to sit in your comfortable white suburban home watching

(quoting

from the play) "the world around you go up in flames." A lot

of them made the choice to leave the country with a one-way exit

permit

(an alternative that the government offered). It was a way for the

government to purge the society of troublesome elements. In exile,

they dried up creatively. Two of my friends went on to commit suicide.

I am writing from something I witnessed. As with most things I graft

aspects of myself onto one if not all of the characters. In the case

of David, there are aspects of myself, that passionate love of the

Karoo, that passionate sense of being an Afrikaaner.

Rejoicings?"

Fugard: The title tells exactly what my play is about. It comes

from Ovid’s Latin book of poems "Sorrows," which he wrote

during exile. It is both a sorrowing for the pain of my country and

the Rejoicings of what it is becoming. Even in the darkest years of

apartheid, I could never hand myself over to total despair. The

people,

particularly the real victims — the black, the brown, the Indians

— were inspirational. With all that the government tried, they

never broke the spirit of the people. I hope that audiences will see

a celebration of life in each of the characters in the play.

In my play, the last memory Marta has of David is of this young poet

in full flight who has just created a poem by putting together the

names of the dispossessed colored people. The amazing thing is that

the house, just like what has happened in my country, now belongs

to Rebecca, who must decide whether to stay and maintain it or sell

it.

Selling out to corruption is the challenge that South Africa faces

now. It is frightening and bewildering the degree of corruption that

is there at the moment. It is, in a sense, a betrayal of our struggle

to free the country and make it the kind of fledging democracy that

it is. But people know that what we have won and achieved, and in

Rebecca’s case the house, has to be looked after. You don’t throw

away the best of the past. If you can rescue the good from the past,

use it to help build the future.

apartheid in your plays?

Fugard: I thought I had until this play came along. After we

had our elections, I wrote my play about transition, "Valley

Song."

Then I thought my writing was going to start a journey into myself,

become more introspective, as with "The Captain’s Tiger."

Out of left field the play we are doing now just hit me, because I

was already involved in writing another play that was very personal

to me. This may surprise you, but it was about the 12th-century German

saint, mystic, and composer Hildegard of Bingen. I already had the

first draft of that play that Emily [Mann] was set to produce. But

then, wham, all those images were in my head of my friends, now

martyrs,

who went into exile and died. They were now suddenly there as

"Sorrows

and Rejoicings" with the support of Emily Mann. Because Emily

is a fellow playwright, she has an understanding of the dilemma of

the writer with his play. I just go along minding my own business

and suddenly these plays find me. I’m not an angry man anymore,

although

I don’t claim to be a wise old man.

My work over the years has become sparer, simpler. My early plays

were all full of the excesses of a young writer. Now I have a much

more controlled use of language, although I still can’t resist having

my arias at times. Every character in "Sorrows and Rejoicings"

has a chance to hold the stage with an aria.

as it tries to sort itself out?

Fugard: Yes there is a debit side. But on the credit side is

the way young South Africans of all colors are coming together to

make the vision a living reality. There are some old diehards from

the past who refuse to recognize that the world has changed. There

is a lot of anger and resentment left over from the years of

apartheid.

In South Africa, a lot of people want to run away from anything that

resembles reality, to just sit back and watch Noel Coward. Theater

is one of the ways in which society deals with its pain, its

conscience.

Theater and all the arts, however, played a major role in the fight

against apartheid.

Saltzman: What is your reaction to the recent incidence of black

mobs attacking white-owned farms?

Fugard: The murders of farmers have more to do with social and

economic causes and are not motivated by race. Due to the high crime

rate, we have not had money flowing into the country in terms of

investment

to generate jobs to feed the people. Poverty in the new South Africa,

housing, and unemployment is as big a problem as it was in the old

South Africa.

The economy is really just limping along. We are locked right now

in a very important court battle between the government and the drug

companies. We cannot afford to pay the prices that the drug companies

are charging. We want to import generics made in other countries,

but are told that it would be violating copyrights. [Last week 39

big drug companies bowed to public pressure and dropped their legal

efforts to keep South Africa from importing copycat versions of

patented

AIDS medicines that Third World governments have been buying at a

fraction of the cost of named brands.]

fossil"

will see a play of his yanked off the stage in South Africa, or have

his passport withdrawn. Currently a resident of Southern California,

and a visiting faculty member at the University of California, San

Diego, Fugard says he feels very much at "home" at McCarter,

his home away from home.

He concludes: "On the threshold of my 70th year, here I am with

a new play coming together in a rehearsal room. Oh, my gosh, I never

thought I’d get this far."

I conclude: Fugard has only just begun the next leg of his artistic

journey: one that he himself has called "the start of a

regenerative

process." How wonderful it is for us to be a part of this journey.

— Simon Saltzman

Place, 609-258-2787. Written and directed by Athol Fugard. To May

20. $22 to $36.

Corrections or additions?

This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com

— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.