Frank Marcus | |
|---|---|
| Born | Frank Ulrich Marcus June 30, 1928 Breslau, Germany |
| Died | August 5, 1996(1996-08-05) (aged 68) London, England |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Theatre |
Frank Ulrich Marcus (30 June 1928 – 5 August 1996) was a British playwright, best known forThe Killing of Sister George.
Marcus was born 30 June 1928 into a Jewish family inBreslau (then in Germany). They came to England as refugees in 1939. Until 1943, he attendedBunce Court School atOtterden, nearFaversham in Kent, (a school founded byAnna Essinger, a German Jewish-Quaker who had started LandschulheimHerrlingen, a private school in southern Germany, which was relocated to England in 1933).[1] He then spent a year atSaint Martin's School of Art.
He started as an actor and playwright with the International Theatre Group and theUnity Theatre.In 1951, he married actress Jacqueline Sylvester, who collaborated with him on some of his plays. His plays were known for their strong parts for female actors, such as in his best known play,The Killing of Sister George, starringBeryl Reid, which was later adapted intothe 1968 film of the same name.
When a theatre company in apartheid South Africa asked to put on a production ofThe Killing of Sister George, Marcus’s immediate instinct was to simply refuse. However, after much consideration, he decided instead that he could do more good and make more of a stance by allowing it to be seen there - under the strict proviso that the audiences would be mixed and non-segregated. Every penny this production earned was divided betweenAmnesty International (specifically for the freeing of South African political prisoners) and a black theatre group inSoweto.
As well as his own plays he made several translations and adaptations from his native German.
He worked as Theatre Critic forThe Sunday Telegraph between 1968 and 1978. After a long struggle withParkinson's disease, he died in London, 5 August 1996.
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