Stage
ATHOL Fugard’s The Road to Mecca, opens at The Fugard on Tuesday, World Theatre Day, and runs until April 28.
The three-hander features Sandra Prinsloo, Marius Weyers and Emily Child and is directed by Greg Karvellas. Design is by Saul Radomsky.
When Fugard wrote the play, he was inspired by “outsider” artist Helen Martins who lived in NieuBethesda in the Karoo and who created her personal Mecca – a wondrous space of healing and hope and affirmation filled with more than 300 sculptures made from concrete, ground glass and mirrors.
Fugard distilled aspects from Martins’s life, but The Road to Mecca is not a documentary. In his play, he has placed a young teacher, Elsa (Child), who helps Miss Helen (Prinsloo) to face eviction from her home by the church pastor (Weyers). In real life, there was a social worker who visited Miss Helen. Elsa was Fugard’s creation. As her ally and friend, she mediates between Miss Helen and the pastor (church and state).
Child talks about how approached her role as Elsa. she
Elsa is a (white) teacher at a non-white school in the 1970s who encourages her students to speak out against the apartheid regime. Fugard has placed her in parallel with Helen Martins who did not ‘fit in’ with her community. They are both outsiders. As your character is fictionalised, does it provide you with broad canvases to imagine her as there is no ‘real’ Elsa?Fugard creates tension between complex and unpredictable characters. Elsa is feisty, determined and politically active but also heartbroken and hugely vulnerable. Fugard writes these character dualities very beautifully. I am trying to approach all sides of Elsa as honestly and as delicately as I can: finding Elsa in the text. But yes, as with all parts, I am looking for pieces of myself in her and in this play, more specifically investigating what it would have been like to be a woman in 1974.
In 1984, it might have still been considered ‘other’ – ‘subversive, ‘brave’ – for a white teacher to be teaching in a black school – at least by some white people watching the play. We are in a different space in 2018. How does that plot line play out now?
This play deals with the idea of being “other” in so many ways. It’s about creative, emotional, political and societal “otherness” as much as how alienated we can be from our sense of ourselves.
The play is set in the 1974 and my character is fighting fiercely for equality through her work but she is also made to confront her own personal “otherness” through the truth and inspiration that Helen brings to her life. This play presents bold ideas through the eyes of three people, all on the brink of some kind of crisis. They mirror each other in many ways and even though they are from very different worlds, they are all searching for freedom, love and a sense of belonging. This is a story that all humans, from all backgrounds will be able to connect with. I’m very excited for this piece of magic to be released to our audiences. This is the first Fugard play I have worked on. I hope we make you proud, Athol Fugard.
In addition to your work on stage and screen, you are have written two children’s books, ‘Jeff and George’, illustrated by Julia Anastasopoulos. You recently published ‘Lucy and Mum’s Shoes’, illustrated by Warwick Kay. How did you get into writing books for children?
I started writing as a way to calm my mind and share my wild imaginings with other humans and now I guess I’m addicted. I love the freedom of writing for children as anything is possible and I get to engage in the sense of wonder that made me want to be an actor. I get to read my stories to schools all over the country. It’s very special to be able to perform to such a different kind of audience.
Tickets are R130 R230. Bookings through Computicket on 086 1915 8000/ www.computicket.com or call the Fugard box office on 021 461 4554. –