Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Athol Fugard berates dramatists for failing to confront injustice

By Dalya Alberge in The Guardian:
Today's dramatists are failing to confront issues of injustice, writing instead "for attention spans of 10 minutes between adverts", leading political playwright Athol Fugard has said.

...He applauded some of the "extraordinary" political work that has emerged from British and American theatre, singling out Sir David Hare for praise. But he added: "They're not doing enough … at the moment. The world we're living is getting worse, not better."

2 comments:

  1. "The world we're living is getting worse, not better."

    That's not actually our fault. I'm fairly sure that would of happened without writers. Unless the guy responsible for the BP oil spillage was too busy writing his debut screenplay to press the right buttons...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:35 pm

    Yes it is - the only thing needed for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing - too many writer's these days claim benefit of clergy - witness Roger McGough's ludicrous assertion that "poets don't take sides" or the way so many screenwriters "re-imagine" actual historical events because in a post-modernist world history is a text with no fixed meaning and blah blah feckin blah - too many writers seem to be more than willing to act as the mouthpieces of our rulers - ther are honourable exceptions - David Hare for one, Jimmy McGovern for another - and one last thing : was that an attempt at satire Oli ? Is that the best you can do ?

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.