Chante Hohip10 March 2025 | 6:06
Remembering Athol Fugard: 'His plays were pieces of fire on stage'
Tributes for the legendary playwright continue to pour in.
Athol Fugard AFP
702’s Bongani Bingwa and director/actor Malcolm Purkey remember the late playwright Athol Fugard.
Listen below:
The famed South African playwright and anti-apartheid figure passed away on Saturday (8 March).
He spent seven decades exposing the injustices of the apartheid system with his art, challenging its race laws and ideologies.
RELATED: South Africa mourns anti-apartheid playwright Athol Fugard
“One of the most remarkable literary figures of South Africa, among the top.”
– Malcolm Purkey
“Over 30 plays; so many of them so fundamental and so important for certainly my life and that generation that grew up in the 70s and 80s… I was so deeply influenced by some of his work to this day.”
– Malcolm Purkey
“These plays were so starkly truthful in a very mysterious way. They weren’t always perfect... but they felt like they were pieces of fire on the stage.”
– Malcolm Purkey
Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the discussion.