August 9: Tribute to playwright Athol Fugard

Theatre group Gnatak will stage Athol Fugard’s ‘The Train Driver’ in Bengaluru next weekend. Directed by Anick Ghosh, the play is being staged in memory of the South African playwright, who passed away earlier this year.

Founded in Bengaluru in 1979, Gnatak has long engaged with Fugard’s socio-politically charged plays, beginning with ‘The Island’. Over the decades, the group has also performed ‘Sizwe Bansi is Dead’.

‘The Train Driver’, written much later in Fugard’s career, is inspired by a real incident near Cape Town. The plot revolves around a white train driver haunted by guilt after his train hits a black woman with her child strapped to her back. It also follows his attempts to find redemption in a graveyard.

“It’s about a man tormented by an accident he cannot undo. The woman in the play is black and the driver is white, which makes the narrative symbolic of South Africa’s history — of the scars left by apartheid,” says Michael Joseph, a member of Gnatak. The team will create the graveyard setting using gunny sacks, stones, old car parts, and a bench. “We have designed lighting to depict the shift from afternoon to twilight within a single scene,” explains Joseph, also the play’s lighting designer.

The two-actor play has been performed 15 times across four cities in south India.

August 9, 3.30 pm and 7.30 pm, at Ranga Shankara, J P Nagar. Tickets online. For details, call 98454 94750.