The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek (TCG Edition)

By Athol Fugard

World premiere at Signature Theatre Company (Off-Broadway) at the Pershing Square Center in New York City the spring of 2015.

The original production was widely acclaimed by New York critics.

Inspired by the life of outsider artist Nukain Mabuzza.

As it centers on the historical context of apartheid, the play would do well in academic courses of history, theatre, and African studies.

Fugard discusses this play in an interview for an episode of “All Things Considered” on NPR.

The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek marks the 16th book by Athol Fugard published by TCG, the most by any writer.

Athol Fugard has been writing plays since the 1970s, winning numerous awards throughout his expansive career.

In 2011, he was honored with a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.

He has won two New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards for Best Play (A Lesson from Aloes) in 1981 and Best Foreign Play (The Road to Mecca) in 1988.

His play "Master Harold"...and the Boys won a Drama Desk Award in in 1982.

In 1996, Fugard won a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work, in addition to a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival in 1992 for his play Boesman and Lena.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Release date: Dec 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781559368483

Athol Fugard

Athol Fugard is a South African playwright and occasional director and actor who actively critized the Apartheid system through his work. He worked with actors such as Zakes Mokae and John Kani and soon gained international recognition for his plays. His fifty years of playwriting include The Blood Knot, Boesman and Lena, Master Harold ... and the Boys, The Road to Mecca and The Train Driver. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 2011. The film based on his novel, Tsotsi, won an Oscar for best foreign film.

Book preview

A touching story of artistic restoration.

—BRENDAN LEMON, FINANCIAL TIMES

"The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek represents a return to politics, specifically a reckoning with lingering inequalities and the rule of law in modern South Africa. The result is as insightful as Fugard’s earlier works, with an embedded layer of nuance that can only come from a seasoned dramatist like Fugard."

—ZACHARY STEWART, THEATERMANIA

"Featuring many of the themes familiar from his past plays, The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek is an intimate theatrical gem … This deeply affecting play represents another highlight in Fugard’s distinguished career."

—FRANK SCHECK, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

A modest, almost oblique, but ultimately explosive look at the new South Africa … With this drama, Fugard both describes and once again demonstrates the tangible power of art.

—JONATHAN MANDELL, DC THEATRE SCENE

Thoughtful and poignant … A carefully built play, Fugard broadens the meaning of Nukain’s masterpiece by placing that powerful symbol of a man’s human dignity in a modern-day context.

—MARILYN STASIO, VARIETY

"Athol Fugard is an institution, literary, theatrical, spiritual and political … The Painted Rocks is raised up by the rigorous eloquence and compassion of Fugard’s writing and the uncompromising clarity of his vision."

—SYLVIE DRAKE, CULTURAL WEEKLY

THE

PAINTED

ROCKS

AT

REVOLVER

CREEK

BOOKS BY ATHOL FUGARD AVAILABLE FROM TCG

Blood Knot and Other Plays

ALSO INCLUDES:

Boesman and Lena

Hello and Goodbye

The Captain’s Tiger

Cousins: A Memoir

Exits and Entrances

A Lesson from Aloes

Marigolds in August and The Guest

My Children! My Africa!

Notebooks: 1960–1977

The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek

Playland and A Place with the Pigs

The Road to Mecca

The Shadow of the Hummingbird

Sorrows and Rejoicings

Statements

INCLUDES:

The Island

Sizwe Bansi Is Dead

Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act

The Train Driver and Other Plays

ALSO INCLUDES:

Coming Home

Have You Seen Us?

Valley Song

THE

PAINTED

ROCKS

AT

REVOLVER

CREEK

ATHOL

FUGARD

THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP

NEW YORK

2018

The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek is copyright © 2018 by Athol Fugard

Afterthought: On Joules and on Creativity is copyright © 2018

by Paula Fourie

The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek is published by

Theatre Communications Group, Inc.,

520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: Patrick Herold, ICM Partners, 65 East 55th Street, New York, NY 10022, [phone].

The publication of The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek by Athol Fugard, through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.

Library of Congress Control Numbers:

2017000959 (print) / 2017006057 (ebook)

ISBN 978-1-55936-522-2 (softcover) / ISBN 978-1-55936-848-3 (ebook)

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Book design and composition by Lisa Govan

Photos (Front): Leon Addison Brown as Nukain Mabuza, Signature Theatre production, 2015. Photo by Joan Marcus. (Back): Nukain Mabuza sitting on The Throne, 1975. Photo by René Lion-Cachet; courtesy of the

Clarke Mabuza Archive, [e-mail]

First Edition, October 2018

For Nukain for inspiration. For Paula for provocation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my wife Paula Fourie for her input during the writing process and for supporting me during the staging of the world premiere of The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek. I would also like to acknowledge the work of Dr. Dirk Hermann and Chris van Zyl, who compiled the book Land of Sorrow: 20 Years of Farm Attacks in South Africa. The bulk of my writing took place under the umbrella of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), whose generous support proved invaluable.

The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek was suggested by the life and work of Nukain Mabuza and the Rock Garden he created in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa from the mid-1960s to 1980. This play is a work of fiction and is not intended to reflect actual circumstances, events, and persons in his life.

CONTENTS

THE PAINTED ROCKS AT