Background Athol Fugard was born to an English father of mixed European descent and an Afrikaner mother. He grew up in Port Elizabeth which forms the setting for most plays. He went on to study anthropology and philosophy at the University of Cape Town but dropped out a few months before final examination.

The Island (1973) Athol Fugard A Quick Rundown of The Island - The Island is a Fugard play that resorts to the Classics to protest Apartheid.

Along with a friend, he hitchhiked till Port Sudan in North Africa where he on a steam ship. Later, Fugard returned to South Africa and married Shiela Meiring, an actress, who ignited in him the love for theatre. His job as a court clerk made him keenly aware of the injustices of apartheid which is the theme for most of his plays. Later, he organized a multiracial theatre which caused a direct confrontation with the white government.

His passport was revoked when his play Blood Knot was staged in England and his criticism of the practice of segregating theatre audiences in South Africa brought on more restrictions. Fugard’s plays kept the issue of the absence of individual freedom in South Africa at the forefront and drew the whole world’s attention to it. He won several awards and a lot of his plays have been converted into movies. He has also acted in movies like Attenborough’s Gandhi and The Killing Fields which is about the Pol Pot regime’s massacre of innocent Cambodians. Fugard now teaches theatre in the US. The notorious island prison called Robben Island is the setting for this play. The most renowned inmate of this prison was Nelson Mandela who spent twenty seven years incarcerated here.

Omnigraffle Pro 5.3.6 License. During this period, South Africa was run by the white Afrikaner National Party. In order to perpetuate white rule in South Africa, they brought a catalogue of draconian laws aimed at apartheid which in Afrikaans meant separateness. Every aspect of the native African’s life was affected by these rules that aimed at segregating the blacks from the whites. Any opposition to apartheid from the blacks was put down ruthlessly.

Extra judicial killings were common and the dished out to the political prisoners aimed at breaking their spirit. Shifting sand from one heap to another all day long or pulling a road roller round and round were some of the cruel and meaningless punishments devised. Nelson Mandela and his associates were arrested while at a meeting in Rivonia. On June 11, 1964, they were sentenced for life and imprisoned in Robben Island. The play ‘The Island’ draws on the real life experiences of some of the prisoners who were incarcerated on Robben Island. Antigone was staged there once with Mandela playing the role of King Creon. Athol Fugard chose the story of Antigone to highlight the conditions in South Africa where the majority community was kept down by ruthless rulers who like King Creon passed laws which went against God’s own rules.