Barney Simon
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Barney Simon (13 April 1932 – 30 June 1995) was a South African writer, playwright and director. He was born in
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
, South Africa, and spent most of his life there. The city of Johannesburg and its denizens, shaped by diverse racial and gender identities as well as by South Africa's politics, provided the core inspiration for his writing and directing work.


Early life and apprenticeship

Born on 13 April 1932 in
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
, South Africa, the son of working-class
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
n
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
immigrants, Simon discovered a love of theatre while working backstage for South African Jewish impresario Taubie Kushlick (1910–1991) in Johannesburg when he was still in high school. He was particularly influenced during his stay from 1953 to 1955 by the methods of
Joan Littlewood Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and is best known for her work in developing the Theatre Workshop. She has been called "The Mother of M ...
in the East End of
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
in the 1950s, whose company
Theatre Workshop Theatre Workshop is a theatre group whose long-serving director was Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company, many of its productions were transferred to theatres in the West ...
, co-founded by Howard Goorney, drew not only on source texts but also on company members' experience to create socially relevant theatre. Returning to Johannesburg, he supported himself as an advertising copywriter while producing and directing plays, including
Athol Fugard Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard (; 11 June 19328 March 2025) was a South African playwright, novelist, actor and director. Widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright and acclaimed as "the greatest active playwright in the English-speaki ...
's ''
The Blood Knot ''Blood Knot'' is an early play by South African playwright, actor, and director Athol Fugard. Its single-performance premier was in 1961 in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the playwright and Zakes Mokae playing the brothers Morris and Zacharia ...
'' (1961). He also published short stories in anti-apartheid magazines such as ''The Classic'', edited by
Nat Nakasa Nathaniel Ndazana Nakasa (12 May 193714 July 1965), better known as Nat Nakasa, was a South African journalist and short story writer. Early life Nat Nakasa was born in outside Durban, South Africa, on 12 May 1937; his mother Alvina was a teac ...
and later by Simon himself from 1964 to 1971. Simon spent a year (1969–70) in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, where he introduced South African plays to American audiences and observed African-American performances by members of the Black Arts movement, and edited the literary journal '' New American Review''.


Building the company

Back in South Africa in the early 1970s, Simon applied his dual interests in theatre and social activism to work in rural health education, creating scenarios for role-play to help black nurses better understand their patients. in Johannesburg, he staged multi-racial plays anywhere he could, in warehouses and shantytowns, storefronts and back yards, but in 1974, Simon and his collaborato
Mannie Manim
who was working for the government-sponsore
Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal
(PACT), founded The Company and gained access to PACT's experimental Arena Stage, housed in an old school building, where they put on South African adaptations of classical plays, such as Georg Büchner's ''
Woyzeck ''Woyzeck'' () is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. Büchner wrote the play between July and October 1836, yet left it incomplete at his death in February 1837. The play first appeared in 1877 in a heavily edited version by Karl Emil F ...
'' and Sophocles' ''
Antigone ANTIGONE (Algorithms for coNTinuous / Integer Global Optimization of Nonlinear Equations), is a deterministic global optimization solver for general Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programs (MINLP). History ANTIGONE is an evolution of GloMIQO, a global ...
''.


Barney Simon and the Market Theatre

In 1976, Simon and Manim co-founded Market Theatre, Johannesburg's first multiracial cultural centre, drawing in part on the model of The Space, the first racially integrated theatre to emerge in the post-war apartheid period, and in part from Simon's experience collaborating with black artists in local adaptations of European classics, such as ''Phiri'' (1972). Backed in large part by liberal capitalists, often Jewish, who funded the renovation of the historic building, which had housed the Indian Fruit Market since the 1890s, Simon and Manim were able to defy apartheid law that mandated separate venues for black and white, and to provide a relatively safe space for black theatre artists who were more likely to face the threat of arrest for staging anti-apartheid plays. imon remained the theater's artistic director from its opening until he died in 1995. While he directed South African adaptations of European experimental and often socially critical drama, from Peter Weiss's '' Marat-Sade,'' which opened the main house in 1976, to many adaptations of
Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...
, he is best known for collectively workshopped plays for integrated casts, drawing on the contrasting life experiences of black and white members of the company. These included controversial dramatizations in response to violent state repression of politics, such a
''Black Dog''
(1984), about the
Soweto Uprising The Soweto uprising, also known as the Soweto riots, was a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in South Africa during apartheid that began on the morning of 16 June 1976. Students from various schools began to p ...
s of 1976, an
''Born in the RSA''
(1985), about the crackdown during the State of Emergency in 1985, but also more subtle treatments of social conflict, such as the exploration of the struggles of South African women in the pla
''Call Me Woman''
(1979), which the cast developed after the Market was unable to secure production rights for Ntozake Shange's play '' For Colored Girls who have considered suicide''. Simon's last productio
''The Suit''
(Market Theatre 1993), was adapted from a short story of the same name by
Can Themba Daniel Canodoise "Can" Themba (21 June 1924 – 8 September 1967) was a South African short-story writer. Biography Themba was born in Marabastad, near Pretoria, but wrote most of his work in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, South Africa. The town w ...
, but fleshed out the characters by drawing on English and South African vernacular dialog developed by the original cast. Simon collaborated with the Paris-based
Peter Brook Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shak ...
and his colleague screenwriter
Jean-Claude Carrière Jean-Claude Carrière (; 17 September 1931 – 8 February 2021) was a French novelist, screenwriter and actor. He received an Academy Award for best short film for co-writing '' Heureux Anniversaire'' (1963), and was later conferred an Honorar ...
on the French translation, staged at the Bouffes du Nord in 1994.


Literary life and publications

Simon was active in South African literature as the editor from 1964 to 1971 of ''The Classic'', the influential anti-apartheid South African journal of literature founded by
Nat Nakasa Nathaniel Ndazana Nakasa (12 May 193714 July 1965), better known as Nat Nakasa, was a South African journalist and short story writer. Early life Nat Nakasa was born in outside Durban, South Africa, on 12 May 1937; his mother Alvina was a teac ...
in 1963. Simon edited an autobiographical novel by Dugmore Boetie, ''Familiarity is the Kingdom of the Lost'' (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1969), for which Simon also wrote an afterword. A collection of his own stories, '' Joburg Sis!'', was published in 1974. Adapted for the stage, these stories or, more accurately, monologues written with particular actors in mind, were staged first by the Company at the Arena Stage in 1974 and later revived at the Market Theatre. The original performance of the title story "Joburg, Sis!" is noteworthy for actor Marius Weyers' sympathetic portrayal of a gay man in
Hillbrow Hillbrow () is an inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is known for its high levels of population density, unemployment, poverty, prostitution and crime. It had a large and active Jewish commun ...
, at the time a cosmopolitan apartment district in central Johannesburg, which provided relative safety at a time when homosexual conduct was criminalized in South Africa. A decade later, ''Outers'' (1985) and.''Score me the ages'', published in ''Born in the RSA and Other Plays'', also featured LGBTQ+ characters. Simon collaborated with Percy Mtwa and Mbongeni Ngema on the 1981 satirical play '' Woza Albert!'', a two-man show that uses a hypothetical visit of Jesus Christ to satirize the absurd side of apartheid life. First performed at the Market Theatre, ''Woza Albert'' was published by Methuen in London in 1983 and has been continuously in print and on South African stages and school syllabi since then. Although not primarily concerned with film, Simon directed an adaptation of ''Woza Albert'' at the
Riverside Studios Riverside Studios is an arts centre on the north bank of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. The venue plays host to contemporary performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production. Having opened in May 1976, th ...
in London in 1983 and, for the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
, a film version of the story "City Lovers" by
Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...
, who shared with Simon a lifelong fascination with their home town Johannesburg.


Death

Simon died in Johannesburg, aged 63, on 30 June 1995, having suffered a heart attack a week earlier, while hospitalized for an apparently minor complaint.


Publications


Selected plays

*''Phiri'' (1972) *''Hey Listen'' (1973) *''People'' (1973) *''People Too'' (1974) *''Storytime'' (1975) *''Cincinnati'' (1977) *''Cold Stone Jug'' (1980) *
Call Me Woman
' (1979) *''Marico Moonshine and Manpower'' (1981) *'' Woza Albert!'' (1981)
''Black Dog-Inj'emnyama''
( 1984) *
Born in the RSA
' (1985)Simon, Barney (1997), ''Born in the RSA: four workshopped plays'', Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. . *''Outers'' (1985) *''Klaaglied vir Kous'' (1986) *''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 Lion and the Lamb (1993)'' *'' The Suit'

1993)


Sources

*''A Singing in Every Moment and Inch of Me: The Letters of Barney Simon to Lionel Abraham'' (2009),
Seven Stories Press Seven Stories Press is an independent American publishing company. Based in New York City, the company was founded by Dan Simon in 1995, after establishing Four Walls Eight Windows in 1984 as an imprint at Writers and Readers, and then incorpor ...
. *''The World In An Orange: Making Theatre with Barney Simon'' (2006), edited by Leila Henriques and Irene Stephanou, Seven Stories Press. *''Woza Afrika! - An Anthology of South African Plays'' (1986),
George Braziller George Braziller (February 12, 1916 – March 16, 2017) was an American book publisher and the founder of George Braziller, Inc., a firm known for its literary and artistic books and its publication of foreign authors. Life and career Braziller ...
. *''Born in the RSA and Other Workshopped Plays'' (1997) by Barney Simon and the casts. Ed. Pat Schwartz. Wits University Press. *''Best of Company: The Story of Johannesburg's Market Theatre'' (1988) by Pat Schwartz. AD Donker. . *''Joburg, Sis!'' (1974), Bateleur.


References


External links

* *''Encyclopedia of South African Theatre:'
Barney Simon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simon, Barney 1932 births 1995 deaths 20th-century South African dramatists and playwrights 20th-century South African short story writers 20th-century South African male writers South African male dramatists and playwrights South African male short story writers