We didn't know Athol Fugard lived in Del Mar, did you? At any rate, he reflects on the Oscar win for Tsotsi in this San Diego Union Tribune profile.
Though the South African film “Tsotsi,” adapted by director Gavin Hood from Fugard's only novel, was nominated for best foreign language film, the writer himself was cozied up in the Rancho Santa Fe home of his friend Marianne McDonald watching a BBC detective drama.
“I must confess this terrible heresy,” he said, revealing that he neither attended the Kodak Theatre ceremony (though he was invited) nor watched it on television. The internationally acclaimed author of 33 plays – sprung from his native South Africa, saturated in its stark colors and spanning nearly 50 years of his own and his nation's struggle – Fugard now lives most of each year in Del Mar.
We remember seeing Fugard's lovely The Road to Mecca years ago in New York, a production that starred Amy Irving and Fugard himself.
(Tsotsi - the novel - has been reissued in paperback by Grove Press to tie in to the film's release.)
He's been writer in residence at the La Jolla Theatre for dog's years. Sadly, I think it shows a bit in has later work that he's cut off from his roots. I had the good fortune to see Sizwe Bansi is Dead at the King's Head Pub in London when it first left South Africa in 1973 and it was so powerful I literally couldn't speak for many hours afterward.
Posted by: John Shannon | March 13, 2006 at 10:50 AM