Fugard falls and the craft of the humane
And political playwright, so topples. It is not enough now
To detail, as certain contemporaries do, but contain
The essence that spills from torn lands,
Such as the anguish and ache of Apartheid for which
Fugard’s plays sought the stitching
Between the white laced wrongs and black pain.
In his novel Tsotsi, we read of a frustrated urban
Gangster’s redemption. Fugard’s plays saint
Soft paper in my own pictured pile to slice through
The imperative to survive in both the glare and gloom
Of oppression, whether it is in the Shadow
Of the Hummingbird’s shimmer, where we can grasp
Both dream and dimension across the fleeting face
Of what’s true. It can also be tracked through the story
Of Boesman and Lena, who traipse from defeat
To salvation, sourcing their strength within struggle
As they bicker and blaze under heat. Or as seen
In Sizwe Banzi is Dead beside John Kani
And Winston Ntshona, where the authoritarian archway,
While workshopped, is exposed to house nothing
But the peeling paint and taint of deceit.
Fugard was a humanist first through each fist.
His plays are dialogues across nature. And for nature also,
As they feature the sun stirred land and the bloom
Of an exotic flower which bursts from beside
Blood to bare beauty, whether watched by a houseboy,
Or an aged and failing man fearing doom
For his lost nation, or the state from which
All civil war is directed. Fugard’s recognition
And incomprehension at the contempt of shared skin
Primes each page. As, with surety he knew
How to be, and how to align blood to brother.
It was in his eyes, moist, full, imploring, and it poured
From his pen to the stage, in South Africa, the U.S.
And anywhere there’s a problem. His writing, a beacon
For this and through his long age, his lines lit,
The seeming texture of dark and the taste anticipated
By morning. The plays are practically all duologues,
Their speeches shaped like as wise rivers. Each phrase
Swells and washes, freshening feet as we sit;
As well as eye, ear and mind. And that which is forever
Combined with truth telling; a sense of the soul
Stirring quickly as it struggles through skin to expose
That the true Road to Mecca is won by making not art
From life, but by turning life itself into artwork
Which all can share. Through such seeing, the dust
And stone beneath Boesman become as glorious as a rose.
When writers die, old books start to form a flag
For lost nations. Fugard’s remains, through his efforts
To create of a multi‑racial theatre for all. He did not shirk.
At his shirt was a heart beating black and blue, white
And crimson. His pen brought forth beauty.
His ears, alert heard the call of the angels who fell,
Just as he has now succumbed or surrendered
To the dust and dirt of the driveway
That his fading breath will soon smoothe. At 92,
His shade shines in a near century graced by effort.
His countrymen and women salute him,
As we all should. After Athol there will be so much
In all of us left still to prove.
David Erdos, 10/3/2025
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