Finding strength in a climate of oppression
Athol Fugard’s “A Lesson From Aloes” slowly simmers for most of its absorbing two hours before brilliantly boiling over and sadly coming to rest.
The affecting new production of the intimate South African apartheid-era drama at Z Below evenly distributes disaffection among its three characters who embody the disastrous personal ramifications of living through their country’s moral failure.
The play was first produced in 1978, making it to Broadway for a brief run in 1980, though it’s been little seen since. Director Timothy Near’s meticulous production deftly renders Fugard’s gem, orchestrating a balanced triad of nuanced performances.
Set in Port Elizabeth in 1963 when the thenlegal apartheid policy had been in place for 25 years, the play’s historical antecedents are a 1957 Johannesburg bus boycott and the subsequent violent police responses to anti-apartheid activity. Draconian laws allowing the arrest and detention without charges of South Africans suspected of antigovernment activities for up to 90 days kept the country on edge.
The story unfolds quietly at first during one evening in the walled-off backyard garden and home of Piet and Gladys Benzuidenhout. The aloes of the title dominate the space, which feels like a little oasis in an ominous encroaching desert. Cliff Caruthers’ otherworldly sound design casts a subtle tension over the married couple’s awkward patter.
Piet (Victor Talmadge), a white Afrikaner retired bus driver, obsesses over his many varieties of the indigenous plant he says is known for nearly supernatural survival ability amid inhospitable conditions. Gladys (Wendy vanden Heuvel), an English South African, drifts in and out of the conversation bemused and exasperated by her husband’s busyness, but something else afflicts her. They wait for Piet’s longtime friend Steve (Adrian Roberts), a black South African activist just recently released from jail.
Steve doesn’t arrive right away, which allows Piet and Gladys to gingerly unpack a potent backstory to the upcoming reunion.
The two men’s joyous initial expressions of kinship and brotherhood deftly set up all that follows. Fugard places issues of trust and loyalty in the foreground in front of the looming
specter of the harsh governing white minority forcing the characters into grim consolations.
Piet has the earnest, simple assurance of a true believer, whether it is in the unique strength of the aloe or the righteousness of his political beliefs. Gladys maintains neutrality, but she reminds the men that it doesn’t remove her from harm’s way. Steve faces the most difficult of circumstances as he contemplates a life of oppression with a wife and children to consider.
The performances are all compelling as each actor creates a vital piece of a subtle yet shattering story. Fugard has written more popular plays, but “A Lesson From Aloes” in this finely realized production reveals the hard truths of his country at that fractured time as well as any.