Athol Fugard.
I could say “blink and you missed him,” but you would have missed him anyway. At last Sunday’s Tony Awards, South African dramatist Athol Fugard received a special lifetime achievement award — just another of many awards for one of the two African playwrights (the other is Wole Soyinka) who achieved a measure of success and recognition in the West during the 20th century. A Fugard play has not been on Broadway since a 2003 revival of “MASTER HAROLD … and the Boys” at the Roundabout, following up on a Broadway revival of The Blood Knot (95 performances) in 1985. Fugard offered a very short speech thanking South Africa and the United States.
But you didn’t see this; it was presented during the “InterContinental Hotels and Resorts” Creative Arts Awards, in which Fugard’s recognition was sandwiched among the design and technical winners. I didn’t see the Tony Awards on Sunday (and the few excerpts that I have looked at exhibit all of the smarmy self-congratulation of previous awards shows); Garrett Eisler did, and even he noted: “But for god’s sake, if you can’t spare time on a program about theatre excellence to let Athol Fugard get his due, then what good is it?” Well, no good at all, really. But that’s all right because the Tony Awards are not about theatre excellence: they are a three-hour commercial for a bland, predictable product known as Broadway; the winner of the Best Play award was a Steven-Spielberg-ready weeper, the winner of the Best Musical award a snarky crowdpleaser. Indeed, it would be ironic if a program about theatre excellence hid an award to one of the greatest playwrights of one of the largest continents in the world behind a commercial (or, since this is the Tonys, behind a commercial within a commercial). But not if it was a program about selling a mass-consumption entertainment product instead.
Critical responses to the Tonys indicate that this year’s telecast was one of the most entertaining and successful in some time — but popular response is hard to gauge; the ratings for this year’s program were only one-tenth of a percentage point higher than last year’s, and viewership steadily fell through the telecast. The show was ranked second when it started at 8.00, it was dead last by the time it ended at 11.00, according to the overnights. So perhaps most of America didn’t miss Fugard at all. But let’s be clear: the Tony Awards are not about theatre excellence. They are about commercial product and pointless and empty self-congratulation; and this includes those who have been ballyhooing the show’s success this year. Fugard would have been mere window-dressing amidst all that — if they’d put him in the window.
Athol Fugard’s dismissal by the Tony telecast producers is both infuriating and not surprising at all. Thankfully, there were at least a few people at the American Theater Wing who understood Fugard’s body of work was overdue for such recognition. Of course, those driving the television show (whose sole purpose seems to be to alert you as to what musical you will badger the hotel concierge for tickets when you come to New York at Christmas time) feared that mouthbreathers coast to coast would fall into one large collective coma if anything referencing straight drama was mentioned.
Fugard’s acceptance speech (you can find it somewhere on the Tony Awards site) is all of about 10 seconds long; when the Oscars (a commercial for Hollywood studios) give out these lifetime achievement awards, there is usually a highlight reel of the filmmakers’ work.
Well, I wouldn’t get that worked up over it. You can’t expect a world-class culinary experience at McDonald’s. Of course, few critics have bothered to make a fuss, their being as much a part of the same commercial machine (and their falling all over each other to praise the broadcast gives that right away, hoping to catch some of that corrupt light.).”Tis the way of the world.