Picture Credit: Jesse Kramer
Tonight is the first of two preview performances of Athol Fugard’s The Bird Watchers, premièring at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town. After both the preview performances, on 10 and 11 May, Fugard will be on stage to answer questions from the audience about his latest play.
Tonight’s Q&A; session will be facilitated by Daniel Galloway, the Fugard Theatre’s general manager, and by author Justin Cartwright tomorrow night.
The Bird Watchers is Fugard’s latest world première to be staged on the Fugard Theatre stage from 10 May to 4 June. He dedicates his latest work to two defining friendships from his early years in theatre in South Africa, namely those with Barney Simon and Yvonne Bryceland.
“It celebrates the memorable hours we spent watching birds and talking in the shade of the umGwenya tree at my home in the Eastern Cape. Although the characters in the play are a Playwright, a Director and an Actress, the work itself is entirely fictional,” said Fugard, who is receiving a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre in June.
The three friends in the play are the passionate Garth, played by Sean Taylor (a “rough-around the edges” playwright), Guy De Lancey as the gentle-mannered Lenny, (a director) and Dorothy Ann Gould flamboyant Rosalyn (an actress).
The Bird Watchers will be managed by the same creative team that delivered The Train Driver in 2010, which also saw the evergreen 79-year old Fugard direct a world-première of his own work in the theatre that carries his name. Lighting design is again by Mannie Manim, who has lit every one of Fugard’s plays, and costume and set design by Saul Radomsky.
Bookings, with reserved seating, for The Bird Watchers can be made on www.computicket.com, or you can contact the Fugard Theatre on 021 461 4554.
The show will run from Mondays to Saturdays at 19:30 from 12 May to 4 June.
The special previews will start at 19:30 tonight and tomorrow night.
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