Master Harold and the Boys
of all of Athol Fugard's plays, "MASTER HAROLD...and the boys" is clearly the most personal, as it was based on a painful incident from his youthful days. During the ugliest years of the apartheid system, Fugard's critical position against the South African regime resulted in most of his works being banned in his homeland, so they had to be premiered on stages abroad, most notably the Yale Repertory Theatre, where "MasterHarold" received its March 1982 worldwide unveiling before moving on to Broadway a couple of months later. Set in Port Elizabeth in 1950, at a time when Fugard was 17, the play was once the subject of critcism for never referring specifically to the apartheid system, which was officially in its third year of existence. Yet now -- nearly a half century from the day of its setting
George's Park Tea Room. Eskay's line delivery in the early going is somewhat grating in its repetitive inflection, but finds a more acceptible stride when the play's major conflict comes into focus. Michael Giannitti's lighting is warm, muted and unobtrusive, and Tony Angelini's sound design is particularly praiseworthy. Brown-Orleans returns to an area stage following his brilliant early work at UMBC, several noteworthy subsequent roles, and most recently as Hambone in the acclaimed Studio production of Two Trains Running. We see the private agony (and rage) of dealing with a problematic father, together with the mixture of his personal compassion and the need to espouse the party line hatred for blacks. Sam (James Brown-Orleans) and Willy (Michael Anthony Williams) have much to teach Hally as well, and their preparation for a ballroom dancing contest in a couple of weeks becomes, at the show's point of greatest optimism, a poignant metaphor for life and global human interaction. The story takes place in a tea room in Port Elizabeth, where young Hally (Steven Eskay) shares the book knowledge he is somewhat reluctantly acquiring at high school with one of the two black employees of his mother's business establishment. And this is what distinguishes the Studio effort here. Eskay is amazingly believable as a bright teenaged schoolboy who must make several difficult transitions resulting from the impetuousness of his youth coupled with his having to confront a dichotomy between heart and state. Since the play clearly aims at adding a human dimension to the seething undercurrent of tension and conflict, its success is largely dependent on audience acceptance of the three personalities that make up the cast of characters. There is a sort of musical prologue to the show consisting of a recorded montage that combines South African with American jazz standards, and it is a masterfully chosen selection. Haunted by an act of cruelty against one of his two closest childhood friends, Athol Fugard sets his conscience straight with this long one-act (a single scene, no intermission), and in the process raises the more encompassing issues of interracial friendship, betrayal of ideals, and the scars of slavery, no matter what the historical context. Despite the pain and highly visceral reactions the play provokes, (and this excellent Studio Theatre production captures them vividly), Fugard's vision of hope somehow peers through the shattered remains when it's closing time at the St.
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Master Harold,
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Steven Eskay,
MASTER HAROLDand,
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Acceptance Essays
