Master Harold and the Boys

By

Athol Fugard

Athol Fugard [AtOl´ fyOO´gard]

White South African Born June 11,1932 in the remote village

of Middleburg, Cape Province Parents were English and Afrikaner

• Father = Irish and catholic

• Mother = Afrikaner Raised in Port Elizabeth, South Africa English is his mother tongue

More Biographical Info. …

He attended Cape Town University In 1958, he moved to Johannesburg

where he worked as a court clerk, an experience that made him keenly aware of the injustices of Apartheid.

Continued… His credits include: dramatist, actor,

and director. Beginning in 1958, Fugard, despite

South African drama's particular vulnerability to censorship, sustained a theatre group in Port Elizabeth that produced plays defiantly indicting the apartheid policy.

Other background on Fugard

Fugard hitchhiked from Cape Town to Johannesburg and boarded a British merchant vessel as the only white crew member.

During his two years as a sailor Fugard began to judge people by their "personality and merits" rather then by skin color.

His Works:

His first work, Blood Knot, was published in 1961.

Since then approximately 10 more of Fugard's works have been published.

•Including:

The Road to Mecca 1984 Blood Knot 1985 A Place with the Pigs 1987 My Children! My Africa! 1989 Playland 1993 A Valley Song 1996 The Captain's Tiger 1999

More… He began with acting experience Then he started writing plays

• almost always set in South Africa

• steeped in the politics of the day (apartheid and now post-apartheid).

In 1963 he was working with the Serpent Players.

His plays

His characters typically demonstrate strengths and weaknesses which make them unable to fit into what society requires.

Some of his plays are grouped together: The Port Elizabeth plays, the Township plays and the Statement plays. His latest play is The Captain's Tiger.

Fugard writes of the frustrations of life in contemporary South Africa and of overcoming the psychological barriers created by apartheid.

Master Harold… and the Boys

Master Harold... and the Boys was first published in 1982.

It is a play with only three (seen) characters.

• Harold

• Sam

• Willie

Master Harold… & the Boys Brief Summary:

When Harold, a young white man, learns that his alcoholic, handicapped father is returning home, his frustration turns into racist viciousness against the two black men who work for the family.

Master Harold… and the Boys contrasts the world of apartheid with the

ideal world of "no collisions"that Sam describes.

As with many of Fugard's works, Master Harold, has a fairly open ending, suggesting that resolution is up to the efforts of the viewer.

Play information continued…

Master Harold…and the Boys is considered the most autobiographical of Fugard's works

As in the play

• Fugard's own father was a cripple

• his mother managed a boarding

house and a tea room.