When South African playwright Athol Fugard’s ” ‘Master Harold’… and the Boys” appeared in 1982, it was heralded as a passionate statement about friendship, humility and apartheid. In the intelligent production of “Master Harold” at Quotidian Theatre, it remains an extremely timely masterpiece about respect and self-knowledge. At Quotidian, two very talented actors play “the boys,” or servants. Sam (Jason B. McIntosh) is the older, wiser of two middle-aged black waiters at St. George’s Park Tea Room in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Willie (Theodore M. Snead) is younger and less well-educated.
| On stage |
| ” ‘Master Harold’… and the Boys” |
| Where: Quotidian Theatre, the Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh St., Bethesda |
| When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday through April 17 |
| Info: $20 to $25; 301-816-1023; quotidiantheatre.org |
When the play opens, it’s 1950. Sam and Willie are practicing the Quickstep for an upcoming dance competition. Right from the start, Sam sounds like an older brother, coaching Willy to relax, to make the dance “look like romance.” Dancing is one of Fugard’s most important metaphors in the play, in which the dance floor becomes a symbol for an unreal, apolitical place, a “world without collisions.”
The relationship between Willie and Sam is essential to the plot and McIntosh and Snead create the right mix of familiarity and humor to illustrate the bond that exists between them by the time Harold, or Hally (Ben Davis), enters.
Hally is the arrogant, naive, 17-year-old son of the woman who runs the tea room. Sam has played an important role in Hally’s life, standing in for Hally’s alcoholic father and trying to help Hally become a man.
Shortly after Hally arrives, he learns that his father is coming home from the hospital, a fact that makes Hally go ballistic. The angrier he gets, the more he takes out his fury on Sam and Willie. As Sam tries to play his familiar role of counselor and comforter, Hally gets increasingly abusive, accepting no advice from Sam and eventually rupturing the friendship between them.
Davis is not totally effective in his role, partially because his accent is not solid and his imprecise words undermine the emotions they should convey. And director Bob Bartlett allows Davis to overplay his confused love/hate relationship with his father. Still, the depth and breadth of the connection between Hally and Sam is clear and moving. When Hally ultimately shows his lack of respect for Sam, the pain both men feel is excruciatingly evident.
Robert Gandy’s set is a realistic, clean but slightly seedy tea shop, complete with a juke box and wall advertisements for Coca-Cola and milk. It’s an unlikely setting for the discussion of fragile dreams, but it is precisely there that Fugard’s brilliance is revealed: in the contrast between the ugly racism, hatred and bigotry that is on display and the visions that are called up of graceful bodies dancing past one another, twirling, gliding, but never colliding.
