FUGARD@86
e v i t c e p s r e p n a m u h y l e u q i n u A
Charmaine Weir-Smith is an award-winning actress, director and writer who has performed in and directed over 40 theatre productions. She will bring her skill as a storyteller to The Train Driver, directing John Kani and Dawid Minnaar in Athol Fugard’s powerful piece. Creative Feel sat down with Weir-Smith to chat about the play.
W
hen James Ngcobo approached Charmaine-
to work with John and Dawid, who have never shared a stage
Weir Smith to direct The Train Driver, she
together, so that was going to be an amazing opportunity for
went home, read the play and gave Ngcobo
the two of them as well.’
an immediate and emphatic ‘yes!’ At the
Fugard’s brilliance as a playwright is often attributed to
time, they had been discussing the possibility of casting
the universality of his plays – that the characters he creates
John Kani and Dawid Minnaar, which, she says, ‘just excited
are instantly relatable to anyone, anywhere in the world.
me to no end.’
‘He chooses quite simple stories, but he tells them from a
Weir-Smith’s love of storytelling and of Fugard’s work
uniquely human perspective,’ says Weir-Smith. ‘For example,
is evident as she delves into the reasons she chose to direct
I don’t think the story is ever sacrificed because of the
the play. ‘One has got to understand who Fugard is in the
character, I don’t think the characters are sacrificed because
lexicon of South African theatre. You can read any Fugard
of the story. I think he uses those characters, like the train
play and it comes with a humanity that is always profound,
driver from Transnet, to tell that side of the story, and as the
on some level he’s analysing or examining human beings
gravedigger hears it, he interprets the story and we as the
in a way that hasn’t been profiled before or looked at, and
audience see the universality of the themes, and the themes
so the language around certain characters is extraordinary.
are loss, they are about grief, they are about somebody
When I read it, I was immediately taken in by that, the
coming to grips with who he is in South Africa at this point
language that he uses around these two men, who are
in time. But it doesn’t matter if an American audience sees
totally different – they come from different parts of South
the play because what they’re looking at is a man grappling
Africa and society – but yet his understanding of the way
with his own humanity, that’s the joy of Athol, he writes
human beings speak, no matter if they are a train driver
from such a universal place.’
from Transnet Rails or a gravedigger in the Eastern Cape, his language is always so authentic. ‘So if you ask me what drew me to the production, that is the first thing. And the second thing was the opportunity
22 / Creative Feel / May 2018
The Train Driver was originally staged in Cape Town before travelling to the UK and then the US, making this the first time it will be seen on Johannesburg stages. It is also the first time it will be directed by a woman – Fugard
