Interior Plays

The five works in this new selection by the dramatist Athol Fugard explore the interior lives of their characters. Emerging from an embattled society - their first production coincided with the collapse of liberal politics and the rise of Black Consciousness in South Africa - they offer testimony of the playwright's reflections upon the intimacy of tyranny.Apart from the Man in Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act, the central characters are all white South Africans; of these, several are women, ranging from the middle-aged Milly (in People Are Living There), who rages wonderfully against the dying of the light, to the psychologically wounded Gladys (in A Lesson from Aloes), teetering despairingly on the edge of madness.