PLAYWRIGHT ATHOL FUGARD CA. 1970. PHOTO: BY © HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS.
Areas Act came into existence, determining the geographic spaces that each classified person was allowed to live and/or work in. This act also prohibited black people’s access to recreational spaces in “white areas.” Where the Populations Registration Act functioned to racially classify and locate people, the Group Areas Act defined restrictions of movement according to race. The one act gave the engineers of Afrikaner nationalism the restrictive labelling tools they needed to design their Apartheid
The play’s action sits at that tension point between a 50-year-old Fugard in early-1980s, reconsidering the personal and political environment of his youth in 1950.
17
