No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
Margaret Webster (1905–1972), British-American producer-director perhaps best remembered for her production of Othello with Paul Robeson, was also a distinguished writer, lecturer and actress. It was in these several capacities that Webster was invited in 1961 by the United States Department of State to visit South Africa. Webster was to lecture on theatre, offer her one-woman recitals of Shakespeare and Shaw, and direct an “American classic” for the South African National Theatre Organization. In discussions with members of the State Department and the National Theatre Organization, the plays of several writers, including Williams, Miller, Wilder, Hellman and MacLeish, were considered but eventually eliminated for reasons of suitability, individual taste or because of recent productions in South Africa. Eventually, A Touch of the Poet was selected for production.
1 Webster, Margaret, Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), pp. 322–323.Google Scholar
2 Blakeney, Percy, “Margaret Webster ‘Electrifies’ the Cast at Rehearsals,” Sunday Express (Johannesburg) 23 July 1961.Google Scholar All newspaper articles referred to are in the Margaret Webster Papers at the Library of Congress; the clippings lack page numbers, and occasionally the title of the newspaper is missing.
3 “Magnificent Cast and Dynamic Producer at Theatre in ‘Touch of the Poet,’” newspaper clipping.
4 Brown, James Ambrose, “At the Play,” Sunday Times (Johannesburg) 6 August 1961.Google Scholar
5 Jones, Ivor, “The World of Entertainment,” The Cape Times 30 August 1961.Google Scholar
6 J.H.D., “‘Touch of the Poet’ is Memorable,” newspaper clipping.
7 Sowden, Lewis, “Brilliant Acting in O'Neill,” Rand Daily Mail 2 August 1961.Google Scholar
8 Ivor Jones, “The World of Entertainment.”
9 Walker, Oliver, “Drunken Irishman in Search of Oblivion,” The Star (Johannesburg) 2 August 1961.Google Scholar
10 J.H.D., “Touch of the Poet’ is Memorable.”
11 Ivor Jones, “The World of Entertainment.”
12 James Ambrose Brown, “At the Play.”
13 Report of Argus J. Tresidder, 6 February 1962, Margaret Webster Papers, Library of Congress.
14 James Ambrose Brown, “At the Play.”
15 Report of Argus J. Tresidder, 6 February 1962.
16 “Demonstration Against ‘Whites Only,’” Eastern Province Herald 16 September 1961.
17 Margaret Webster, p. 323.
18 Margaret Webster, p. 328.