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For millions of people over many years, Athol Fugard was the voice of anti-apartheid. His tireless work in theatre has resulted in such great plays as My Children! My Africa!, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, and the powerful Master Harold...and the boys . His outcry against the inequity of the South African regime helped to bring a world of understanding to their politics and society. In some ways, his work may have helped influence the downfall of apartheid. Now, Nelson Mandella is in power, equality is being restored to the region, and the black man is discovering the powers and limits of freedom. What is left for a revolutionary writer to say?
Arizona Theatre Company is presenting Mr. Fugard's first work after the end of apartheid, a ninety minute one-act entitled Valley Song, which pits an elderly, colored tenant farmer rooted in old ways against his dreamer granddaughter, who wants to test the limits of her possibilities. All of this is narrated by a white author, a man who sounds suspiciously like Mr. Fugard, and who is played by the same actor who plays the farmer. The result is an interesting piece of theatre that lacks much of the power and necessity of his earlier plays, but is a fitting closure to the cycle of oppression-to-freedom encompassed in his body of work.
At the center of this final struggle is Abraam "Buks" Jonkers, an old colored tenant farmer, and his teenage granddaughter Veronica. Buks is a man of the land, a pumpkin and vegetable farmer for over seventy years living in the "Karoo," a vast semi-desert region at the heart of South Africa. He has never owned the land that he works, but has managed to sustain a family on it. His livelihood is threatened when The Author considers buying the house and land. Meanwhile, his granddaughter, the child of his long gone daughter, has big dreams that go beyond being a housekeeper in the white Author's house. She wants to be a singer, and dreams of leaving the farm to live in Johannesburg. These dreams are too much for Buks, who wants to keep his one remaining family member near him.
Director David Ira Goldstein paces this play slowly, allowing the audience to acclimate themselves to the climate and culture of the Karoo's inhabitants. Once the conflicts are set in motion, though, Mr. Goldstein does a wonderful job of keeping an even balance between narration and interaction, rarely allowing the audience to be confused by the double casting and Veronica's relationship with the two men.
As the dream-filled, songstress Veronica, Tamilla Woodard does a commendable job with this difficult role. Veronica is a wide-eyed innocent, at first too unbelievable a character to conceive, but Ms. Woodard's enthusiasm allows the audience to believe in her. She imbues Veronica with the kind of naivete that symbolically fits a teenager who can barely remember the trials of apartheid. Her singing, which is cute, also comes from the heart, making the audience hope for the best with her dreams.
In his occasionally confusing dual roles of Buks and Author, Jerome Kilty gives life to the disheartened farmer, who lost his daughter to the city, then lost his wife to old age, and now fears losing his granddaughter to dreams. Mr. Kilty brings across the seemingly simple yet profound thoughts of a man linked to the earth. His growing despair is vividly portrayed, and his seemingly old-fashioned attitudes seems completely understandable from his portrayal.
The single set, designed by Bill Forrester, captures the simplicity of the homestead on the Karoo, and the white scrim behind, lit by Tracy Odishaw, transitions between harsh sunlight and soothing night smoothly, helping establish the mood and cycle of the piece. The simple costumes by Kish Finnegan worked well, although something more than a difference of hat would have helped differentiate Mr. Kilty's transitions between Author and Buks.
The transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa seems to have been a smooth one, but the subsequent new travails for blacks there are only now being discovered. With freedom comes dreams, and with dreams come responsibility, and some of those dreams may remain unfulfilled. Mr. Fugard has brought these problems across with a positive spirit that gives the work a punctuation to all of his pieces. Arizona Theatre Company has given this good work a wonderful production, and while it may not be as dramatic as other pieces, it does leave an audience feeling happy at the end of the performance.
Production Details:
Valley Song by Athol Fugard
Arizona Theatre Company
Herberger Theatre, Phoenix
252-8497
Through November 29th
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