"Master Harold"... and the Boys

Credits

By : Athol Fugard

Directed by : Gilbert McCauley

June 16 - July 4, 2021

"...an affecting virtual performance," "excellent," and "the three actors are beyond praise." - The Wall Street Journal

"...breathtaking," "...richly dimensional," "...electric intensity," and "a work of art." - The Post Standard | Syracuse.com

"An outstanding streaming presentation ... a splendid production of one of the best plays of the last century." - Ithaca Times

"...fine acting, excellent direction, and good production values," "...sensitive intelligent production..." - Broadway World

Description

Written in 1982, "Master Harold" . . . and the Boys ranks among the very best of the great South African playwright Athol Fugard’s work. Set in 1950 in Port Elizabeth, this remarkable play exposes the corrosiveness of systemic racism with raw, unsentimental honesty. The play is autobiographical (“the most intensely personal thing I have ever written” - Fugard) and originates in a friendship between a white teenager and a Black man, who is a kind of surrogate father and an employee of the family’s struggling tea room. When stressful circumstances overwhelm the teen, he lashes out in misdirected and emotionally devastating fury that in an instant threatens to undermine years of affection. Heartfelt, revelatory and a lasting tribute from the playwright to “the most beautiful friend I ever had.”

Set in 1950 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, "Master Harold" . . . and the Boys depicts experiences under the racially discriminatory and repressive laws of Apartheid. Conversations, attitudes, and actions in the play reflect the time and place.

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Events

PROLOGUE

Enhance your viewing of ‘Master Harold’…and the Boys with a virtual pre-show discussion with director Gilbert McCauley.

WEDNESDAY@1

Enjoy a virtual lecture One Little Corner of the World from Greg Homann, a multi-award winning South African-born theatre director, playwright, dramaturg and academic living in the UK. In 2014 he was the recipient of South Africa’s highest award for theatre, the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year. Homann will give an overview of the place Fugard was writing from, with reference to some of his other seminal works. Audiences will learn the details of the world Fugard grew up in and how that sense of place has been captured in ‘Master Harold’...and the Boys, including how Fugard finds the universal in ‘writing local.’ The lecture is hosted by Associate Artistic Director Kyle Bass.