Blah blah blah, I love the new Signature Theatre, I love Athol Fugard, blah blah blah. You've heard it all before, right? Well, fasten your seat belts, you're going to hear it again. :)
I recently took in the final production in Signature's Athol Fugard series, The Train Driver, also directed by Fugard. I had deliberately kept myself in the dark about the plot, the cast and everything else. I wanted to go in completely fresh with no preconceptions. Wow, talk about a huge undertaking - letting a Fugard play just wash over you isn't all that easy. There's so much language, so much imagery, so much in miniature, that it's hard to digest everything.
Set inside the Linney Theater, the stage design is amazing. This doesn't even look like the same space that hosted My Children, My Africa. That play was done in three-quarter thrust (sort of), but this one is proscenium-style, with the set extending from wall to wall, with seemingly endless sand and debris and squalor. We find out we're in a graveyard, which is moving enough in itself.
More a sort of tone poem than a play, in my opinion, The Train Driver deals with overpowering guilt and how a person can become connected to another. Like several of Fugard's other plays, we have a black man and a white man, coming together by random circumstances, and they are forced to learn something from each other. Set in post-apartheid South Africa, the things they learn are different, yet, sadly, still rather the same.
First we meet Simon Hanabe, played by Leon Addison Brown, the black caretaker of the graveyard. He has a simple and powerful opening monologue about his first sighting of the white man wandering the graveyard. That man, Roelf Visagie (played by Richie Coster), is looking around the graveyard for a particular grave. But because he doesn't know the deceased's name, he is looking in the section of the graveyard reserved for the 'nameless ones.' That this section of the graveyard is so immense is so sad, but sets up a lot of the despair and poignancy of what is to follow.
I don't want to give much away - not there's a lot of plot to speak of, there's not, but hearing it unfold I think is part of the power of the piece. And I do think The Train Driver is powerful, though it may be a bit overwritten (some of the conversations seem to repeat themselves for no thematic reason) and, paradoxically, the ending may be underwritten. It just sort of...happens. The play is over and you think, huh? But...maybe that's the point. Just like life and death, things just...end. I couldn't tell if it was purposeful, though. But the beauty and the power of the play comes from the performances of these two men, delving deeply into themselves and revealing such raw pain and guilt. It's hard to watch, but it's theatrically stunning.
Richie Coster, especially, has to really bare himself down to almost a primal essence. Some of what he does and what he says caused me to wince and close my eyes, it was so raw. I'll admit to being a fan of his tv and film work, but he's always typecast as a villain, so it was great to see him onstage playing with AND against the stereotype. I was very impressed. Leon Addison Brown was also extremely fine, though I think his role is a tougher nut to crack and perhaps there is another layer to be found. Again, that could just be me.
So, thumbs way up from me, unsurprisingly, but in the interest of full disclosure, there were some walkouts during this intermissionless piece and the people next to me, though they stayed, HATED it. Perhaps my predisposition to enjoy Fugard boosted my enjoyment, but enjoy it I did. Well, maybe 'enjoy' isn't quite the right word. This isn't an easy play to experience, by any means. But I was definitely theatrically thrilled and engaged. That, to me, indicates a thumbs up. Your mileage may vary.
Last night, a chum had an extra ticket to see Philip Ridley's Tender Napalm, at 59E59. He had seen a Ridley play before, but I hadn't. I'm always game to check out a new (to me) writer, plus my chum and I always have a good time together, so I was happy to join him. This play has gotten rave reviews in London and here, but I didn't really read anything about the plot or dramaturgy before going, so I could be surprised. Again. Besides, I had a tasty margarita before the show, so that should help me through the surprises... :)
I'll admit that, at times, this piece seemed like a glorified MFA project to me. The acting and the writing were so artificial. I really had to fight my way through some of the piece. But, ultimately, it really grabbed hold of me. I finally let my brain go, I guess, and immersed myself in the ferocity of the language and the construct. I HAD to know where this would all lead.
A man and a woman are locked in verbal combat for over ninety minutes - is this real? Is it imagined? Are they crazy? Do they do this every night? What the heck is going on????!!!! Realism and fantasy are intertwined, sometimes in the same monologue. Even though this kind of writing generally isn't my cup of tea, I acknowledge that this writer is kind of brilliant. Who else puts stuff together this way?
Again, I don't want to give away too much. But you get the full gamut here - love, lust, hate, rage, pain, sadism, tenderness, fantasy, reality. It's not like anything I've ever seen before. And the way the otherworldliness of the beginning of the piece wrapped itself around to the last scene was genius. I was so moved by the end, I shocked myself. I admit to being in and out, fighting myself throughout, but the ending totally had me.
Again, full disclosure, this piece was not appreciated by everyone else in the audience. it was easy to tell, since the theater is itty bitty and only seats around 50, no more than 25 on each side. And one lady, as my chum and I were exiting, said "That was the strangest thing I've ever seen! (pause) But I'm glad I saw it." Clearly, she's never heard about the five-block rule, but it was an honest admission that made us laugh.
I've been thinking about this play constantly since last night. And, as I type these reviews, I'm noticing similarities between the Fugard and this one. The rawness, the pain, the interconnectivity. Maybe I'm trying too hard, but I really found these plays as two sides of the same coin. And I really like this coin. Two not-easy shows in two nights. Not a lot of laughs to be had, but certainly a lot of cathartic pain. I may need to see a farce next. Oh, wait, my next show is Enemy of the People. If it's a farce, that would be bad...
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