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Playing now...
Hampstead Theatre and Eric Abraham present a Fugard Theatre production
The Train Driver
Written and directed by Athol Fugard
4 November - 4 December 2010
Overview
'Fugard...makes a superb return with The Train Driver, which I would rank among his finest plays... a work of rare grace, tenderness and fragile hope' Telegraph ****
‘brave, confrontational and tender... essential theatre viewing.’ Sunday Times, South Africa
In December 2000, Pumla Lolwana pulled her three children close to her body and stepped in front of a train on the railway tracks between Philippi and Nyanga on The Cape Flats, South Africa.
This true story demanded Athol Fugard's attention and compelled him to write The Train Driver; a beautiful and haunting play of redemptive power. He has described it as 'perhaps the most important play I've written... it's the emotional journey I've travelled in dealing with my inherited legacy of South African prejudice and what you do with that blinkered vision of reality.'
Athol Fugard has stood as the principal chronicler of the South African experience and has helped define our view of it - a view that helped to build the bridge between South Africa and the UK and which catalysed political change. With plays including My Children! My Africa!, Master Harold... and the Boys and Sizwe Bansi is Dead, Fugard is indisputably the greatest political playwright of his generation.
Prices & Times
PRICES:
Previews (4 - 9 November) £18
Mondays/Matinees £22
Tuesday - Saturday £29
Advance Tickets £22 (a limited number of £22 advance tickets are available for all performances)
Student, Under 26, Jobseekers, Senior Citizen and Access concessions available. More info.
TIMES:
Running Thursday 4 November - Saturday 4 December (previews 4 - 9 November)
Monday - Saturday evenings at 7:30pm
Tuesday 9 November at 7pm
Saturday matinees (13, 20, 27 November, 4 December) at 3pm
Wednesday matinees (17, 24 November) at 2:30pm
Audio described performance Saturday 27 November (matinee)
Captioned performance and post show discussion with speech to text transcription Tuesday 30 November
Post-show Q&As with Athol Fugard Thursday 4, Friday 5, Saturday 6 November
Running time is approximately 1 hour 20 minutes. There is no interval.
Cast & Creative Team
Designer: Saul Radomsky
Lighting: Mannie Manim
Sound: John Leonard
Cast:
Owen Sejake
Sean Taylor
Gallery
Sean Taylor, Owen Sejake and Athol Fugard in rehearsal
Sean Taylor and Owen Sejake in rehearsal
Owen Sejake in The Train Driver
Owen Sejake and Sean Taylor in The Train Driver
Sean Taylor and Owen Sejake in The Train Driver
Reviews
'Fugard, now 78, makes a superb return with The Train Driver, which I would rank among his finest plays. It’s a beautiful and moving piece, as well as being tough and uncompromising... a work of rare grace, tenderness and fragile hope.'
Telegraph ****
Read the full review
'impossible to praise either performer [Sean Taylor or Owen Sejake] too highly.'
The Times ****
'As telling and touching as anything he’s written before... It is hard to imagine how the 78-year-old Fugard could have written a more loving valediction to his homeland.'
Daily Mail ****
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'faultlessly acted and one of those poetic pieces which grows on you the more you think about it'
Sunday Telegraph ****
'potent, sad, richly symbolic… Owen Sejake’s Simon is an extraordinary presence… [Roelf] superbly played by Sean Taylor'
Mail on Sunday ****
'There's a tremendous depth of feeling, and anguished authorial identification'
Independent ****
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'a classical simplicity... Determinedly unsentimental'
Financial Times ****
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'exquisite writing and two monumental performances... The Train Driver is a healing experience... seeing it makes one a little more optimistic about the future of South Africa.'
Wall Street Journal
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'Athol Fugard's new play, The Train Driver, bears all the hall-marks of the best of his work... thought-provoking and vividly brought to life by Taylor and Sejake, two of the country's most gifted performers.'
Cape Times, South Africa
'This is a dramatic, moving and sad theatre experience written for South Africa by the country's foremost playwright at a time when Fugard believes we need the art of good theatre as urgently as the old South Africa needed bold and dangerous acts of defiance decades ago... See it'
Sunday Independent, South Africa
'brave, confrontational and tender... essential theatre viewing'
Sunday Times, South Africa
ARTICLES
'Apartheid is not dead yet... the new South Africa needs the vigilance of writers as urgently as the old one.'
Read Athol Fugard's interview in Ham & High
'Why I wrote The Train Driver'
Watch Athol Fugard's video interview with the Telegraph
