THERE is a sense the world over that the arts don’t matter much,” says Eric Abraham, in Cape Town for the opening of the Fugard Theatre, the new “home” for the approximately 35-strong, all-black theatre group, Isango Portobello, that Abraham created with artistic director Mark Dornford-May and opera singer Pauline Malefane in 2006. “There is a universal misconception that the arts will take care of themselves; that it’ll ‘be all right on the night’ — but it’s simply not true.”  Read more