The Island is indeed an actor's play, for acting is its central metaphor and idea: acting as a means for the acting out of one's life, acting as a form of survival, and acting as a basis for (political) action.
In The Island, two black prisoners, John and Winston, are men whose political stands against the state have caused them to be incarcerated, sentenced without determinable end in Robben Islandprison. They are dressed in shorts 'to look like the boys their keepers would make them.' But clearly the authorities wish them to be far, far less than boys, for the prisoners are treated with extreme brutality and are given the sorts of tasks meant to reduce them from men to beasts, to annihilate the last shreds of their humanity.
Their humanity, however, remains intact and it does so because the two men continue to act as humans by using dramatic acting as the means for sustaining their humanity. Improvisation becomes the means through which John and Winston understand and practice their humanity.
The opening actions of The Island provide a painful, moving dumb show from which the drama that follows can be built. The extended mime of John and Winston's labours with wheelbarrow and sand shows the dehumanising, pointless tedium of life on Robben Island. With the blast of a second whistle, the transfer of sand concludes and a new mime commences. This time John and Winston are handcuffed, joined at the ankles, and forced to run in tandem. A subhuman race is portrayed, 'They start to run ... John mumbling a prayer, Winston muttering a rhythm for their three-legged run' Rather than reducing them to despair or turning them into tortured animals, it serves to evoke the very things that raise men above bestiality manifested in John...
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...sland, John and Winston present their Antigone play, but it is a presentation informed on the one hand by John's and now Winston's comprehension of the Antigone legend as an archetype of resistance, and on the other by their understanding of the Sisyphus legend in much the way that Camus understood it. And in his last scene, Fugard pulls out all his stops to create a coup de théâtre that is not an end in itself but a subversive means to enlightenment and political engagement. Brian Crow astutely writes, '[T]he ability to `act,' to assume a new identity however temporarily, is here as in Sizwe Bansi a form of self-protection and a strategy for survival, allowing its exponent as well as its audience (the real one as well as the imagined prison audience) to achieve an understanding and a renewed commitment to struggle in spite of the horror of the situation.'44

The Island By Athol Fugard Pdf Download
The Island Athol Fugard Pdf
The Island By Athol Fugard Pdf

In The Island by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona is a perfect example of the power that art has and the place it occupies in political revolution. It can parallel many event that occurred and that are happening at the moment. The Island was devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. The play is based both on the improvisations on information received about condi-tions at Robben Island prison and also on the true story of prisoners enacting Sophocles’ Antigone as a vehicle of self-expression and act of protest. Following A ntigone is drama’s first.

Nov 11, 2018 The Island By Athol Fugard Pdf Download. Academy-Award winner Athol Fugard, one of theatre's most acclaimed playwrights, finds humor and heartbreak in the friendship of Harold, a 17-year old white boy in 1950's South Africa, and the two middle aged black servants who raised him. Racism unexpectedly shatters Harold's childhood and friendships in.

Analysis of the Island by Athol Fugard – Athol Fugard was born to an English father of mixed European descent and an Afrikaner mother. He grew up in Port Elizabeth which forms the setting for most plays. He went on to study anthropology and philosophy at the University of Cape Town. Then dropped out a few months before the final examination. Along with a friend, he hitchhiked till Port Sudan in North Africa where he worked on a steamship. Later, Fugard returned to South Africa and married Shiela Meiring, an actress, who ignited in him the love for theatre. His job as a court clerk made him keenly aware of the injustices of apartheid which is the theme for most of his plays.

Analysis of the Island by Athol Fugard

Later, he organized a multiracial theatre which caused a direct confrontation with the white government. His passport was revoked when his play Blood Knot was staged in England and his criticism of the practice of segregating theatre audiences in South Africa brought on more restrictions. Fugard’s plays kept the issue of the absence of individual freedom in South Africa at the forefront and drew the whole world’s attention to it. He won several awards and a lot of his plays have been converted into movies. He has also acted in movies like Attenborough’s Gandhi and The Killing Fields which is about the Pol Pot regime’s massacre of innocent Cambodians. Fugard now teaches theatre in the US.

The notorious island prison

The notorious island prison called Robben Island is the setting for this play. The most renowned inmate of this prison was Nelson Mandela who spent twenty-seven years incarcerated here. During this period, South Africa was run by the white Afrikaner National Party. In order to perpetuate white rule in South Africa, they brought a catalogue of draconian laws aimed at apartheid which in Afrikaans meant separateness.

Every aspect of the native African’s life was affected by these rules that aimed at segregating the blacks from the whites. Any opposition to apartheid from the blacks was put down ruthlessly. Extra judicial killings were common and the punishment dished out to the political prisoners aimed at breaking their spirit. Shifting sand from one heap to another all day long or pulling a road roller round and round were some of the cruel and meaningless punishments devised.

Analysis Of The Island By Athol Fugard

Nelson Mandela and his associates were arrested while at a meeting in Rivonia. On June 11, 1964, they were sentenced for life and imprisoned in Robben Island. The play ‘The Island’ draws on the real-life experiences of some of the prisoners who were incarcerated on Robben Island. Antigone was staged there once with Mandela playing the role of King Creon. Athol Fugard chose the story of Antigone to highlight the conditions in South Africa where the majority community was kept down by ruthless rulers who like King Creon passed laws which went against God’s own rules. Antigone is just a young girl but she assumes the moral authority to challenge the king.

Summary – Analysis Of The Island By Athol Fugard

The play is set in an unnamed island but the inference is there for all to follow. The island could only stand for the Robben Island which was packed with political prisoners one of which was Nelson Mandela, serving a lengthy prison sentence. There are only two characters who appear in flesh and blood – two cellmates, John and Winston, who share a close friendship that helps them survive those brutal conditions. In a short while John’s appeal for commutation will come up but meanwhile, they have a play to perform for the other inmates of the prison. The days are spent in meaningless back-breaking physical labour out in the open while the nights are utilized for rehearsals.

The play that is chosen is Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone. This play has echoes of the South African situation where the people are oppressed by ruthless rulers similar to Antigone being oppressed by King Creon. John plays the role of King Creon while Winston plays Antigone. Winston is reluctant to be a female character as he feels that his wig and fake tissue roll breasts will invite ridicule. John meanwhile gets the news that his appeal has been successful and his ten-year sentence has been reduced to three years and in three months, he will be free while Winston will be detained for life. The friendship is tested here as Winston does not understand why he has been singled out. But in the end, the friendship endures and the two are back at hard labour.

Plot

The Island By Athol Fugard Pdf Download

John and Winston are prisoners on the island where they share a cell. Day after day they are subjected to intense labour or forced to run while they were shackled to each other. But their friendship