The Peace beyond Survival
“You’re
alive, Gid!” is the constant refrain from war-casualty Gideon le Roux in Athol
Fugard’s Playland. Survival is a
theme that surfaces in all Fugard’s works that precede Playland. In Boesman en Lena we witness the plight of
two vagrants whose shanty has been destroyed by the Apartheid regime. In The Island we were transported to Robben
Island, where Nelson Mandela endured twenty-seven years of isolation as well as torture,
and the play explores the resilience of pride in the face of adversity. In Playland we are given the first glimpses
of hope with in the Fugardian psyche, and ironically, it was written at a time when a
single man who walked free from prison averted an almost certain national bloodbath.
Many San
Diegans are familiar with Fugard’s work. His
special and long lasting relationship with the La Jolla Playhouse has resulted in it
hosting the American West Coast premieres of his plays since the 1980’s. Playland returns to San Diego after seven
years, and it is such an honor to be offered a role in this play. I have been coveting the role of Gideon since I
saw the very first production in Johannesburg at the Market Theatre in 1992. What makes this production all the more sublime is
that in 1996 I had proposed to TJ Johnson, who plays Martinhus Zoeloe, that we do the
play. I lost contact with him shortly
thereafter and was amazed to hear that our producer Richard Lief, and director Robert
Dahey had cast him in the St. Paul’s Cathedral 2000 production.
This play is so important to me. Like Gideon, the South African Defence Force at the height of Apartheid had conscripted me in 1981. All white South Africans had to join up or face a six-year jail sentence. A few of my friends went to jail. It was a difficult choice. I knew Apartheid was evil. I was eighteen years old and did not have the guts to desert to Zimbabwe and join the armed wing of the ANC. I was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I had been following Fugard’s progress since I was ten years old. Cape Town was an anti-apartheid city and the “The Space” theatre was churning out the rebel plays of Fugard. Like all white liberals Fugard had a similar dilemma to me as he explained in 1993:
“When
apartheid was slowly being defined by the Afrikaans politicians, I was an angry young man
and I seriously wondered whether I shouldn’t be making bombs or joining an
underground unit like some of my friends. I
eventually realized that theatre was in fact a significant form of action, that writing a
play was, if not possibly more potent a response to a situation than putting a bomb in a
shopping mall.”
Fugard
chose to play. His Playland brings the
psychological trauma of the battleground to a small fair in a remote desert town. A black man and a white man are inescapably drawn
to one another in a chilling drama that borders on extreme violence. Both men are committed to survival, a stubborn and
brutal desire to justify their own fears and misdeeds.
Yet, as they fall under the spell of one another’s shadow, and are humbled by
the enigma of the enemy, they become aware of a way to peace, through reconciliation.
Dramaturg
Floyd Gaffney says of Fugard in 1992:
“The ingrained ideology of Apartheid is a constant presence in Fugard’s dramatic cosmos. Whether subtly or not, the presence of this socio-political disease substantially affects those individuals who are destined to live out their lives in its shadow.”
In Playland
the shadow is the jailor of both these mens’ past. What
frees them is the intervention of the Human Spirit that recognizes and embraces this
shadow making both men see beyond survival and to acknowledge one another as equals, right
or wrong.