Award winning play shows the havoc wreaked by apartheid era in South Africa
Posted Jul 29, 2010 By EMC News
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Tweet ThisEMC Entertainment - The Thousand Islands Playhouse Firehall season continues with Athol Fugard's stunning classic Master Harold...and the boys. Set in South Africa during the early apartheid era, the story deals with the coming of age of 17-year-old Hally, a white South African.
Hally is torn between his bigoted father's expectations of him and those of his surrogate fathers, black waiters named Sam and Willy who work in the tea room owned by Hally's family. Young Hally is obliged to laugh at his alcoholic father's racist jokes and must pretend he is not humiliated by him.
In stark contrast is Hally's life long relationship with Sam, who has been a teacher and source of positive, affirming experiences.
During the play, Hally receives bad news to which he can muster no useful response and distraught, unleashes years of misdirected anger and pain on his two friends. Devastating in its depiction of friendship and betrayal, Master Harold....and the boys captures not only the havoc wreaked by the apartheid era, it is also a play about human relationships put to the test by societal and personal forces.
Of all Fugard's plays, none is more personal than Master Harold . . . and the boys, because it relates a boyhood incident which involved Fugard and which haunted him until he tried to atone by writing this play in 1982. It was officially banned by the South African government.
Despite the efforts of his native country, the wider world did not ignore Fugard's work and Master Harold...and the boys earned the Drama Desk Award and Critics Circle Award for best play in 1983, and London's Evening Standard Award in 1984. The play has subsequently earned a place in contemporary world drama, enjoying frequent revivals around the world. It is considered to be one of Fugard's masterpieces and a vital work valued for both its universal themes of humanity and its skilled theatre craft.
The Playhouse is pleased and proud to have Nigel Shawn Williams at the helm as director. Williams first appeared at the Playhouse in Girl in the Goldfish Bowl at the Firehall in 2005. He won a Dora Award for his direction of The Monument for Obsidian Theatre, and recently directed Laius for Nightswimming, part of Ned Dicken's City of Wine cycle. The cast of Master Harold...& the boys are all newcomers to the Playhouse: Conrad Coates appears as Sam, in the role of Willie we welcome Ryan Allen and Julian DeZotti appears as Hally.
The set and costumes have been created by Dora winning designer Shawn Kerwin. The lighting design is by Playhouse technical co-ordinator Adair Redish and the sound design is by production manager Dan Rider. Eric Armstrong is dialect coach and the production is stage managed by Robert Harding, assisted by Megan Mitchell-Downey.
Master Harold...& the boys opened Friday, July 23 and closes Saturday, Aug 21.
Performances are Tuesday through Sunday at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
Ticket prices are $32, $30 for those 65 plus, $25 for those under 30 and $16 for students and children. Tickets are $16 on all Sundays (prices do not include HST).
The box office opens daily at 11 a.m. Tickets may also be purchased online at 1000islandsplayhouse.com.
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