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Going behind the name
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February 23, 2010
By Zane Henry
Currently based in the US, Athol Fugard is in town to direct his new play, The Train Driver, which will run at the recently opened Fugard Theatre from March 19 until April 11. He speaks about the play, getting older and the nature of home...
Zane Henry: How are you? Right now? Really?
Athol Fugard: My health is not too good. I'm 78 years old and lucky to have gotten this far. I didn't look after myself when I was younger. All my drinking in the bad old days - sorry - good old days, bad eating habits, back surgery, aches and pains... I don't deserve to have lasted this long (laughs). But I have and that's a blessing I'm grateful for. Any time I get now is gravy. There's lots worth living for.
ZH: Which questions are you most tired of being asked of late?
AF: (adopts a high-falutin' accent) How do you feel about having a theatre named after you? I've been asked that question so many times I don't know if I have any feelings left. I don't feel proud. I feel humbled. In my opinion, there are many people far more deserving of having that theatre named after them than me.
I tried to say no when they asked me the first time, but they wore me down. Whether it was the right decision isn't up to me. But no, it certainly doesn't make me feel proud. Whatever reputation I have comes from telling stories about very desperate fellow South Africans.
I don't feel proud of telling those stories. I try to be an honest witness and an honest witness should not feel proud.
ZH: How have you been spending your time in Cape Town?
AF: Worrying whether I'm up to the challenge of directing a play, mostly. I haven't directed anything for 10 years. But this one's important to me. I have two beautiful, experienced actors in Sean Taylor and Owen Sejaki.
If nobody wants to see this, I only have myself to blame. In this last week though, a surge of confidence has started me thinking, Maybe I'm in here with a chance. Not the actors, because they're excellent. But me. Maybe I'll get it right.
ZH: What led to the birth of The Train Driver?
AF: It came from an article I read in the Mail and Guardian. I was in America at the time and reading my South African papers online and I read about a woman from Samora Machel squatter camp. Three children. The man in her life nowhere to be found.
In an act of desperation - no, an act of despair, because desperation has an energy to it - carried her children, one on her back, two in her arms, to the railway line, stood on the tracks between Philippi and Nyanga and waited for a train, which killed them all. It was Christmas, a time when the rest of us were drinking and putting on funny hats. And here was this woman with absolutely no hope left. Not for her and not for her children.
ZH: Surely there can never be an absolute absence of hope?
AF: Then why did she do it? Why? We're talking about an internal condition in which hope is gone and despair is all that's left. (raising voice) Don't take that away from people! Don't say that they made a mistake.
Don't be arrogant about the fact that you have hope in your life. Just accept humbly that there are people in the world who have none. Leave it to them and God to evaluate, not us petty human beings, with our arrogance and flawed conceits.
ZH: What about her children? Was there no hope for them either?
AF: (raising voice higher) I'm talking about what she felt! I'm not talking about what you think! She didn't give a f*** about what you think! This was her world.
Sure, we can say that there was hope for those children. That's easy for us, isn't it? And that's why I'm doing this play. It is dedicated to her. That's it. That is the story of the play. Done.
ZH: It's bewildering enough living in post-apartheid South Africa. How challenging is writing about it?
AF: No more challenging than writing about apartheid-era South Africa. (Chuckles) Some days it feels exactly the same. We know that the new South Africa has a hell of a lot going for it. There are freedoms that we have never had before. But we also know that the health policies of the Mbeki administration probably killed more people than the Special Branch of the old South Africa did.
We know that the scale of the suffering that's continuing in Zimbabwe could've been changed by a different response by South Africa to that unbelievable idiot who runs the country. We know what has happened in our country to desperate people from neighbouring countries.
We also know what Comrade Julius Malema is up to.
Maybe things in South Africa aren't as bad as they were a few decades ago, but it's nowhere near perfect. Just look at what we know.
ZH: What is home?
AF: The table at which I write. When I sit down with a pen or at a keyboard, I know who I am, I know why I am and I know why I am who I am.
ZH: Do you believe that living outside of South Africa affects how you write about the day-to-day lives of its people?
AF: Some people have suggested that having distance helps to see things clearer. It's hard for me to say. One of the things that I've been working on is being honest about the damage that was done to me while growing up in this country.
I'm not suggesting that growing up as a white person was anywhere near as severe as other people because I never cried out in pain, but damage was done. I don't have to watch other people to write about prejudice because I have it inside me. It'll never go away, but I have to fight it unwaveringly.
I'll never stop calling myself an alcoholic. I passed a bottle store on my way here and in that window was a bottle of Glenfiddich. The temptation is real, but I fight it.
ZH: How has your writing changed over the years?
AF: Any writer who has been in the game for long enough has to undergo changes. When I read The Blood Knot recently, for example, two things hit me: it is grossly overwritten and it has a youthful energy that I envy. It was written by a young person drunk with the delight of discovering words.
I don't get drunk anymore, both as a recovering alcoholic and an older writer. There is a great distance between the heady literary sprees of my youth and the sober measured glasses of late. I'm a bit jealous of that young writer. He was a playwright. He played.
ZH: What do you do now?
AF: Good question... What do I do now? I don't play anymore. I stand in the dock and swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Any writer in this country has a duty to perform: a moral obligation to use the gift of language responsibly and with integrity.
ZH: You spoke of being sober in your writing these days. Has being away from the drunken carousing here in South Africa led to that?
AF: No. The madness that has possessed our world is all too pervasive.
ZH: Would your 10-year-old self be happy with who you are now?
AF: He'd be surprised that I've made so much noise. Eh, Oupa?
There are earlier parts of my life that he might be unsure about, but he'll know that I've always meant well. I look at my six-year-old grandson, and for his sake, probably more so than for anyone else who has been in my life, I'm trying to be a good man.
The Train Driver runs at the Fugard Theatre from March 19 until April 11. Tickets can be booked by calling 021 461 4554 or by visiting www.thefugard.com
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