South African Theatre- Barney Simon

Barney Simon-
Black Dog/Inj’emnyama and Born in the RSA
Barney Simon grew up in Johannesburg, his love for theatre grew from a childhood addiction of cinema. He returned to South Africa in 1960 after spending four years in England and was determined to pursue a career in theatre. Athol Fugard’s plays and ‘non-racial’ rehearsal strategies inspired and excited Simon, he formed a relationship of mutual respect and the two of them have influenced the way theatre is made in South Africa today.
Simon’s plays were staged in a manner that is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas’s, ‘Under Milk-wood’ where the action moves from each cameo setting using lighting techniques. The audience then connects their own story through the various suspended actions of the actors on stage and the actors thus complete different facets of the same tale by telling their different perspectives, thereby making the story multi-dimensional.
The way in which Simon wrote his plays was through workshops. He...