4/25/2021 0 Comments A Lesson From Fugard
We see that this clue has already been published in Wall Street Journal Puzzles.If you want, you can directly challenge a friend or loved one in the daily crossword puzzle competition.By night he is usually in a theatre, possibly followed by a cabaret chaser.
This spring brings two such plays to London: Blood Knot from the start of his career, and this play from the late 1970s, in his middle period as an author, but just before his international breakthrough. A Lesson from Aloes is not an overtly confrontational play, but it is symptomatic of the times in which it was written that it was very nearly banned by the South African authorities, then operating at the very height of apartheid repression. We find ourselves in a bleak, shabby and bland house in a Pot Elizabeth suburb occupied by a middle-aged couple of some apparent eccentricity. It is 1963 and Piet Bezuidenhout (Dawid Minaar) and his wife Gladys (Janine Ulfane) have both come to the end of their tethers for different reasons. Piet, who grew up as a traditional Afrikaner farmer, was driven off the land through years of continuous drought and has ended up as a bus driver, dabbling mildly in liberal politics and the fringes of resistance to the regime. He takes symbolic solace in his collection of aloes (succulents) that seem to represent his ornery resistance to hard times and determination not to leave his roots. His wife Gladys, has an altogether more precarious hold on everyday life, having just returned from a stay in a mental asylum, and is still displaying signs of nervous anxiety and incipient panic. The second act is built around Steves arrival alone and discussion, first indirect, then open, of whether Piet was the informer in question. Another major theme, all the more relevant in 1978, is whether opponents of the regime should stay and fight; or leave, as Steve is doing, having obtained a visa for England. What is seeks to demonstrate, is not the evil of apartheid, which even then needed no further direct iteration, but rather the insidious results of an oppressive regime on its subjects. The neurotic retreat of Gladys into madness is the most direct reaction to the fear the regime induces, and Steves flight into what is essentially exile, is another; and while Piet remains standing and defiant, he survives only in an impotent, gestural way and with only his aloes for company. And of course, you have to add in the quality of the acting in this revival where each of the three players delivers a searingly rich characterisation each of which is at points almost too big and intense for the tiny space of the Finborough. Minaar captures both Piets rugged individualism and his inarticulate compassion both for his wifes sufferings and the injustice that surrounds him. There is also a lot of ambiguity present so that you can plausibly believe he might be an informer too. Ulfane conveys brittle instability brilliantly, and the two scenes in which she essentially has a breakdown on stage culminating in a drooling loss of control are very painful to watch, as they are meant to be. But this is no caricature of a performance there is plenty of light and shade and wistful retreat into memories too, that reminds you of one of Tennessee Williams female characters. Rubin has perhaps the most tricky role of all to deliver: he has to introduce himself with brio in the second act and then develop complexities swiftly. A Lesson From Fugard Full Of CharmThis is a mercurial incarnation, full of charm but also shades of suspicion and suffering that are gradually unfurled. All three actors perform miracles in generating a lot of movement with hardly any room for manoeuvre (your reviewer did his best in the front row to keep his knees out of the way). ![]() Courtyard and interior are suggested with great economy and vividness of means, and a special place of honour is rightly reserved for the aloes themselves. Sound designer Rachael Murray evokes a delicate sound palate giving us the domestic world of this washed up couple and plausible street noises, and Mannie Manims lighting design gives not just a sense of the passage of time from afternoon to late evening but also what hot sun and lingering twilight feels like in South African terms. There are few new writers on political themes that can approach Fugards sense of the nuances of shadows, and for that reason alone we still have much to gain from renewing our familiarity with his earlier works. By day he teaches and lectures intellectual and cultural history at LSE and also conducts guided historical walks around London.
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