Athol Fugard (1932–2025)

Helen, whose husband’s death has caused her to stave off various bouts of depression and battles with, to use her word, “darkness,” has recently re-discovered her gift for sculpture. Her back yard – which Helen calls her Mecca - is full of bright, colorful, life-sized figures of biblical wise men, birds, and anything else her imagination encourages her to make. One of Helen’s only remaining friends, Elsa, pays her a surprise visit from Cape Town. During their discussion, Helen show more mentions that the dominee at her local Church, Byleveld, has taken it upon himself to suggest to her that she should consider moving into a convalescent home. Byleveld claims to express concern for the Church, but also for others in New Bethesda who think that Helen has become a mad eccentric, tottering on senility. Even though Helen is unable to do some things for herself, she has a local woman come to her house a few times a week, and seems very capable of living alone. Elsa vehemently urges Helen to resist Byleveld’s “help,” and refuse his offer. He’s even gone so far as to fill out the paperwork for the home; all he needs is her signature.

The play consists of only three characters, but the balance, dynamism, and tension between them is beautiful and subtle. While Byleveld could easily come off as patriarchal and overbearing, Fugard leaves plenty of room for the reader to believe that he’s really doing what he thinks is in Helen’s best interests, even though we are not to mistake his interruption as anything other than heavy-handedness. He’s not the easy-to-hate bigot that would have been caricatural. In a number of ways, Elsa is more of a caricature, with her youthful idealism and cosmopolitan, rigorous rejection of Afrikaner tradition.

As all great drama does, this resonates on a number of levels. It’s a comment on aging and how sometimes we see aging as a necessary loss of personal volition and independence. The disagreements between Byleveld and Elsa embody many of the dualisms that South Africans were dealing with thirty years ago, and to some extent continue to deal with: the rural versus the urban, the religious versus the secular, and a conscious effort to crush artistic openness and personal freedom versus a volitional effort to let that openness, or eccentricity as Byleveld calls it, flourish and prosper.

It might strike some as interesting that, for a play written in apartheid South Africa, I haven’t mentioned race. It’s not a major theme, but its presence is as insidious as Byleveld’s. Elsa is worried about her privilege, especially how it might impinge upon the lives of others, in compelling and sincere ways. On the way to visit Helen, Elsa gave a ride to a young black woman with a child, and she is haunted by what might have happened to her after they parted. By the end of the play, Elsa and Helen have rebuilt the trust that was compromised by Helen being ambivalent about standing up to Byleveld.

Athol Fugard is South Africa’s most well-known playwright, perhaps best known for “Master Harold … and the Boys.” I’d never read anything by him when I found “The Road to Mecca” last weekend at a library book sale for fifty cents. And after reading this, I’m even more eager to read more by him than I was before. show less

"Master Harold" and the boys is a short play that has an immense impact upon first reading. The playwright Athol Fugard manages to imagine a relationship between a boy and two Black servants in early 1950s in South Africa and make it become a universal experience that continues to resonate with readers in the Twenty-first century. I was impressed with the economy of words that were used to express multiple levels of feeling and meaning throughout the play. The culture of England, long the show more colonial power in this country, is also ever present in language and simple things such the names of towns.

The basic story is a simple tale of a boy, Hal, on the verge of manhood struggling with his education and his relationship both with his friends, the Black servants Sam and Willie, and his father who is nearing the end of what must have been a tyrannical patriarchy. Hal, who is "Master Harold" to Willie and plain Hally to Sam and everyone else, struggles through the issues of his relationships and what they mean until the difficulties with his father overtake him and he lashes out at the Black servants, reminding the reader that this is the era of apartheid and this is South Africa. One of the most powerful metaphors is that of the dance that is used from the opening of the play and culminates in a beautiful moment as the linchpin for transcendent beauty and the meaning of art. The day ends with tentative attempts at reconciliation, but we are left wondering whether the next day will bring a new level of maturity and hope for the master and his boys or more of the same tensions that make compassionate friendship crumble in this moving drama. show less

this was hard for me, but it got easier toward the end. it took me almost 4 days to get through the first 40 pages, because the writing is so tough, not because of the content. i don't know if i just got more used to the writing or if it changed a bit, but it did get easier. the story is hard, too, but more abstractly so, i thought, because of the way it's written. also, probably, because of how removed tsotsi is from his own life, so the reader doesn't care a whole lot, either. as he comes show more into more of an ability to care and to evaluate, to question and to remember, the reader becomes more involved and interested as well, and the writing becomes clearer and less abstruse. i'm a little uncomfortable with what seems like maybe a religious/christian epiphany thing happening at the end, although it ins't (like much of the book) entirely clear.

i really liked that this edition had fugard's notes in the back, so i could see the meaning he was intending behind some aspects of the story.

"The ache in his legs was no worse than a ten-day-old knife wound." i find a statement like this to be both totally unrelateable and totally fascinating. to choose to use that comparison, when virtually no reader will understand it, is really interesting to me. what he's saying about this character's experience and how outside most readers' understanding it is. show less

i picked this up in the airport because i accidentally left my book at home. unfortunately, i already owned every other book in the store that i was remotely interested in reading, so i was stuck with this one. lucky for me, it turned out to be pretty good. its about a boy, or maybe a man (you never really find out), that is the leader of a small local gang. he has no recollection of his past, where he came from, what his name is, how old he is. an infant is dropped into his arms, abandoned show more and alone, and he somehow finds memory of his childhood in the baby. its a great story of youth and individual transformation. however, if graphic violence bothers you, this book has a few moments that are american psycho-ish.apparently, this one has also been made into a movie and has won tons of awards in the film circle as a more independent syle film (not mainstream i guess). i'll have to see if i can find it. show less