His plays, even the radical ones such as Sizwe Bansi Is Dead (1972), Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (1972) and The Island (1973), 1 are replete with paradoxes and have generated considerable debates.

Old and current studies on Athol Fugard’s politics and commitment in theatre reveal that his art is enmeshed in controversies.

Generally, the article is anchored in the relation between intention, context and text or performance. The article further examines some of the plays’ contested politics through a discussion of the diverse facets of restriction employed by the apartheid regime to gauge and suppress politics in the arts at the time and the underground activities of the playwright and his actor-collaborators who had to contend with the apartheid machinery that was designed – overtly or covertly – to suffocate any form of art deemed subversive and/or anti-apartheid. For instance, while he promoted a belief in ‘the personal being inextricably political’, in his plays, in public utterances he denied being political. It also discusses his multilayered identity and how it affected his compositions and play-making, as well as the paradoxes associated with even his most political plays. This article examines his often downplayed but equally potent contribution to the struggle against apartheid through theatre. His multidimensional (rather than a given perspective) approach to art enabled him to retain his literary leaning and identity.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution,Īnd reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Īthol Fugard enjoys a place of honour in the South African and generally African canon as a great dramatist, creative collaborator, director and as an artist who was able to create a distinctive theatre that blended African and Western forms of performance. Identity, politics and restriction in Athol Fugard’s art: Writing and liberalism in apartheid South Africa & Bello S., 2018, ‘Identity, politics and restriction in Athol Fugard’s art: Writing and liberalism in apartheid South Africa’, Literator 39(1), a1459.

Why did athol fugard oppose apartheid