Exit stage left
“Another icon has fallen.” This is how actor, author and playwright John Kani described the closing of the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town.
This week, the theatre’s founder and benefactor Eric Abraham announced the permanent closure of the popular playhouse “with immediate effect”.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the theatre suspended productions. Abraham said in a statement on the theatre website that it was no longer financially viable or safe to reopen the theatre in the foreseeable future.
“The theatre will be handed back to the owner of the freehold of the building — the board of the District Six Museum — as a working theatre. We hope they will be able to use it for the benefit of the museum and the District Six community,” Abraham’s statement reads.
Named after renowned playwright Athol Fugard, the 320-seat playhouse opened its doors in March 2010.
Guests entered through an old Gothic-style church in the Sacks Futeran building. The congregational church hall in Caledon Street served as the foyer.
For many, The Fugard was more than just a theatre — it was a fundamental part of SA’s history. The area was once demolished by apartheid bulldozers in the destruction of the mixed-race suburb District Six, in line with the Group Areas Act of 1950.
Shadowed by Table Mountain, it is located behind the Cape Town City Hall, where Nelson Mandela gave his first speech after being released from prison in 1990.
The Fugard put on local and international plays, such as John Kani’s Kunene and the King, Shakespeare in Love, King Kong, West Side Story and “Master Harold” … and the boys. Other notable productions included Fugard’s The Train Driver and The Road to Mecca, and David Kramer’s Blood Brothers and District Six — Kanala.
The Fugard was also home to the annual Open Book Festival, an annual gathering of authors and readers.
Kani said it is a tragedy that there is now a chain across the entrance to this beacon of the arts. “I’ve never seen, in any country, in all my 78 years, a country that did not have a plan for these institutions should things get to a point where the economy is almost closed down. It’s very sad. The arts have been the silent casualties. We have not been working since March last year.”
Other actors and theatre lovers took to social media to mourn the closing of the theatre.
Poet and stage performer Lebo Mashile described the closure of The Fugard as a “painful death”, and musician Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse said arts & culture minister Nathi Mthethwa should not “sit and do nothing” about this loss to all South Africans. —