Barney Simon
Encyclopedia
Barney Simon was a South African writer, playwright and director.
in London in the 1950s. Returning to Johannesburg, he supported himself as an advertising copywriter while producing and directing plays. Before he opened the Market, he staged multi-racial plays anywhere he could: in warehouses and shantytowns, storefronts and back yards, including Fugard's The Blood Knot (1961). Simon spent a year (1969–70) in New York, where he introduced South African plays to an American audience and edited the journal New American Review.
in 1976. The Market Theatre
was South Africa
's first multiracial cultural center and a birthplace of the country’s indigenous theater movement. Working under the racial segregation laws of apartheid without state subsidies and under constant threat of arrest for staging controversial contemporary plays performed by multiracial casts in front of multiracial audiences, Simon remained the theater’s artistic director from its opening until he died. He was the first to stage many of Athol Fugard
’s plays, directed a film for the BBC of Nadine Gordimer
’s story City Lovers, and worked with screen writer Jean-Claude Carrière
on the French translation for the Paris production by Peter Brook
of Simon’s last play, The Suit (Le Costume) (1994).
Simon was known for his method of creating and developing original plays through a workshop process of field research, improvisation and collaborative writing, sometimes with untrained actors or combinations of musicians, professional actors and people entirely new to the theater.
Early life
The son of working-class Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, Simon discovered a love of theatre while working under director Joan LittlewoodJoan Littlewood
Joan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...
in London in the 1950s. Returning to Johannesburg, he supported himself as an advertising copywriter while producing and directing plays. Before he opened the Market, he staged multi-racial plays anywhere he could: in warehouses and shantytowns, storefronts and back yards, including Fugard's The Blood Knot (1961). Simon spent a year (1969–70) in New York, where he introduced South African plays to an American audience and edited the journal New American Review.
Simon and the Market Theatre
Barney Simon co-founded Johannesburg’s Market TheatreMarket Theatre
The Market Theatre, based in the vibrant inner-city suburb of Newtown in Johannesburg, South Africa, was opened in 1976, operating as an independent, non-racial theatre during the country’s apartheid regime...
in 1976. The Market Theatre
Market Theatre
The Market Theatre, based in the vibrant inner-city suburb of Newtown in Johannesburg, South Africa, was opened in 1976, operating as an independent, non-racial theatre during the country’s apartheid regime...
was South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
's first multiracial cultural center and a birthplace of the country’s indigenous theater movement. Working under the racial segregation laws of apartheid without state subsidies and under constant threat of arrest for staging controversial contemporary plays performed by multiracial casts in front of multiracial audiences, Simon remained the theater’s artistic director from its opening until he died. He was the first to stage many of Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...
’s plays, directed a film for the BBC of Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...
’s story City Lovers, and worked with screen writer Jean-Claude Carrière
Jean-Claude Carrière
Jean-Claude Carrière is a screenwriter and actor. Alumnus of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, he was a frequent collaborator with Luis Buñuel...
on the French translation for the Paris production by Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
of Simon’s last play, The Suit (Le Costume) (1994).
Simon was known for his method of creating and developing original plays through a workshop process of field research, improvisation and collaborative writing, sometimes with untrained actors or combinations of musicians, professional actors and people entirely new to the theater.
Literary Life
Simon was active in South African literature as the editor of The Classic from 1964–1971, the influential South African journal of township literature founded by Nathaniel Ndazana Nakasa in 1963. Simon edited an autobiographical novel by Dugmore Boetie, Familiarity is the Kingdom of the Lost, for which Simon also wrote an afterword. He also published a collection of his own stories, Jo'berg Sis, in 1974.Partial list of plays by Simon
- Phiri (1972)
- Hey Listen (1973)
- People (1973)
- People Too (1974)
- Storytime (1975)
- Cincinnati (1979)
- Cold Stone Jug (1980)
- Call Me Woman (1980)
- Marico Moonshine and Manpower (1981)
- WOZA ALBERT!Woza Albert!Woza Albert! is a political satire that imagines the second coming of Christ in apartheid-ridden South Africa.-The play:The play opened at Johannesburg's Market Theater and toured in Europe and America as the most successful play to come out of South Africa, winning more than 20 prestigious awards...
(1981) - Black Dog-Inj Mayama (1984)
- Born in the RSA (1985)
- Outers (1985)
- Klaaglied vir Kous (1986)
- Written by Hand (1987)
- Inyanga - about Women in Africa (1989)
- Eden and Other Places (1989)
- Score me the Ages (1989)
- Starbrites (1990)
- Singing The Times (1992)
- Silent Movie (1993)
- The Suit (1994)