Abstract
M.A. (English)
The aim of this d i s s e r t a t i on is to identify the influence of
Bertolt Bretht on Fugard's life and work in South African
theatre. As Fugard himself is not German-speaking, and his
experience of Brecht is perforce through translations of Brecht
into English, this is not a comparative study bet veeri the
dramatists. It merely uses Fugard's own statements about his
reading of Brecht in English at various points in his career,
from the 1950s to the present, to show this particular aspect of
his own development as a dramatist. The standard works on Fugard
- Athol Fugard, Stephen Gray (ed.) (Johannesburg: McGraw-Hill,
1982), Dennis Walder, Athol Fugard (London: Macmillan, 1984) and
Russell Vandenbroucke, Truths the Hand can Touch (Johannesburg:
Donker, 1986) - refer only glancingly to this possibility.
The introduction establishes the many references Fugard has
made to Brecht in his writing - which includes not only his
plays, but his novel, filmscripts, notebooks, letters and
interviews and interprets how Fugard perceives various
Brechtian theatre principles, such as the use of the alienation
effect, the epic nature of drama and the function of theatre in
the community. In the following chapters Fugard's vorks are
examined, in order to show how Brecht has been of use to him at
various key points in his career. This is done chronologically,
so that a larger picture of the influence on Fugard's development
as a dramatist and his changing use of Brecht as a source may be
seen.
The conclusion of this dissertation takes the findings of
the previous chapters and assesses the nature of the BrechtFugard
link, taking into account the different aspects and
levels. This is briefly compared to the findings of the latest
critical work to have corne out in which Fugard features - Martin
Orkin, Drama and the South African State (Johannesburg:
Witwatersrand University Press, 1991) - in an attempt to show how
using the methodology of a source and influence study like this
is of value in coming to a deeper understanding of the dramaturgy
of a writer like Fugard...