FUGARD'S SAD AIDS
TALE FROM SOUTH AFRICA
By Georgia Rowe
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater,
music
and dance
Week of Jan. 27-Feb. 4, 2010
Vol.
12, No. 57
Athol Fugard, who has spent much of his career
writing about the devastating
effects of apartheid on his native South Africa, explores the
country’s latest scourge – AIDS – in “Coming Home.”
The 2008 play, currently receiving a tender,
luminous production at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, finds the playwright
returning to his beloved Karoo, and
to a
character first introduced in previous Fugard play.
At the end of
that earlier play, “Valley Song,” which
Berkeley Rep produced in 1998, Veronica, a teenager raised by her
grandfather
Oupa, was saying goodbye to her childhood village and heading for the Big City
–
in this case, Cape Town
– with dreams of becoming a singer.
“Coming Home” opens ten years later, with Veronica returning. Oupa has died, and in the intervening years,
Veronica has had a child and contracted HIV/AIDS. With
no money, and only one friend left in
the village - Alfred, an illiterate farmer who scratches out a meager
living
growing pumpkins – her prognosis is grim: the government, she explains
to
Alfred, tells poor AIDS victims to “eat bananas and take vitamins.” One look at the opening scene, as she arrives
with her son, Mannetjie, to take up residence in Oupa’s one-room
concrete shack,
speaks volumes about how little Veronica has to look forward to. But if she’s missed her chance, she hasn’t
lost her spirit. And she comes home with
a plan for her son’s future.
More than any
other living playwright, Fugard has revealed,
in searing dramatic terms, the effects of institutionalized injustice
on the
individual. “Coming Home” isn’t a
masterpiece on the level of the playwright’s “Master Harold…and the
Boys,” and
the strong narrative of Act I becomes a bit diffuse midway through Act
II. By evening’s end, though, the play
succeeds
by simply telling Veronica’s story. It’s
a story shared by many South Africans – according to a 2007 report, the
country
had the highest rates of HIV infection in the world.
Director
Gordon Edelstein, who staged the play’s world
premiere, gives Berkeley Rep a beautifully detailed production, with an
excellent set by Eugene Lee, costumes by Jessica Ford, lighting by
Stephen
Strawbridge and sound design by Corrine K. Livingston.
The elegiac tone of the play is shot through
with humor and song, and the designs wash the stage in rich color and
stirring
South African music (John Gromada contributes several original
compositions.) But the brightest light
emanates from Roslyn Ruff, who illuminates Veronica’s love, despair,
anger and
sweetness in a vibrant performance.
Thomas Silcott is a gentle Albert, and Lou Ferguson is charming
in a
couple of scenes as Oupa’s guiding spirit.
Two young Oakland
actors, Kohle T. Bolton and Jaden Malik Wiggins, play Mannetjie at
different
ages. In their performances, there’s a
hopeful future for Fugard’s South Africa.
“Coming Home” continues through Feb.
28, 2010. Two hours, 30 minutes, with one
intermission. Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, 2020 Addison, Berkeley. For info: 510-647-2949, or go online.
©Georgia Rowe 2010
#
Georgia Rowe is a Bay Area arts
writer. Her work has appeared in Opera News, the San Francisco
Examiner, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Contra Costa Times in
addition to artssf.com.
These critiques appearing several times weekly focus on dance and new
musical creativity in performance, with
forays
into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local
artists as well.
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