No Yardstick to Measure Species, No Name for the Plants of the Drought
Thalia’s Umbrella opened its performance of A Lesson from Aloes by playwright Athol Fugard at Isaac Studio Theater of Taproot Theater, Greenwood, North Seattle, on 10 October, Friday. Directed by Daniel Wilson, with Terry Edward Moore, who is also the producing artistic director, as Piet, Pam Nolte as Gladys and William Hall, Jr as Steve, A Lesson from Aloes is Thalia’s Umbrella’s second production.
Director Daniel Wilson states that Fugard has just the right ingredients for making good theater: conflict which gets most dramatic when it surfaces in our relationships with spouses and friends. In A Lesson from Aloes, Fugard weaves together stories of three individuals: a white married couple and a former political activist, a black South African, who all had to pay their dues separately to the oppression of white-dominated South Africa.
In two acts, a day unfolds displaying the painful process of characters confronting their own and each other’s identities. A dinner party, anticipated with good faith and yearning, brings conflict and an unexpected resolution. No one is better off in that land of drought; no one’s tragedy hurts more than the other’s, and apparently the only species with chance of survival in that land are the Aloes.
Athol Fugard, who has the controversial role of the white, liberal writer in contemporary South Africa, opposes the South African state policies of racial segregation, known as the Apartheid and his works have fostered a global understanding of life under oppression. His works masterfully create intimate settings where a few characters reveal their own stories, within a larger political context. A Lesson from Aloes was first performed in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1978, during the Apartheid regime (officially between 1948 and 1994) where South African people were segregated racially in all sectors of their lives. Arriving on the American stage in 1980 at Yale Repertory Theater, the play has been receiving popular and critical acclaim ever since. As Thalia’s Umbrella’s artistic producing director emphasizes, ‘A Lesson from Aloes weaves a tale of poetry and survival, of friendship and betrayal, where the personal is always political and the political is always very, very personal’.
Set in 1963, during Apartheid and a long four years’ drought, the plot revolves around an afternoon conversation between Gladys and Piet as they talk about the evening’s dinner guests. Piet’s pre-occupation with defining various species of Aloes sets the undertone of the play. His late-life hobby of naming Aloes, probably the most enduring plant species in the drought years, is symbolic of his own need to endure his land’s harsh demands, which Gladys, his wife ,jealously resents. Her obsession with her diary, reveals a compulsive need to remain an individual. Steve, the dinner guest, an old friend and a black former ‘comrade’, has exchanged his cause for disillusionment, after years in prison. Apartheid has been working on the lives of these characters, in its own malicious ways, and what they need is bonding and forgiveness, to expose their wounds and cure the internalized malice.
Steve’s story telling is a relief in the dense atmosphere of anticipation, suspicion and betrayal, driving the action forward. The sound and the language of the play are rich with a palette of British, Dutch and black Afrikaner accents of English on the stage. Voice Coach, Stephanie Kallos, who is also an award-winning novelist, compares Fugard’s texts to Shakespeare’s in terms of their rich sound patterns.
Much like personal props, characters’ accents are used like tools making them unique individuals. The cast of A Lesson from Aloes delineated profoundly distinct personalities using their voices creatively. In terms of the stage design, there are no surprises to be found. The sound design by Lucy Peckham includes short instances of expressive sounds to build tension in the instances of Gladys’s diary indicating her disturbed moments. Also there are naturalistic outdoor sounds of a dry afternoon in the town of Port Elizabeth. The same set is used for both interior and exterior scenes with minimal props and furniture.
Set in a black box theater, the audience sat in a semi-arena configuration with seating facing each other, frequently exposed to the backs of the actors, and to the other half of the audience. The stage was also populated by a large collection of Aloes, you may find yourself looking for one to adopt after the show closes, as they are available upon donation!
A Lesson from Aloes produced by Thalia’s Umbrella runs through October 26, on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday except for October 19. Directed by Daniel Wilson, with Terry Edward Moore as producing artistic director. Box Office: 206-781-9707 Tues-Sat, noon-5 pm, or at Thalia’s Umbrella website http://www.thaliasumbrella.org or Taproot Theater website at www.taproottheatre.org The Taproot Theater is located at 204 N. 85thStreet and Greenwood Avenue in North Seattle.