Review: 'MASTER HAROLD' ... AND THE BOYS in Stellar Production at Schoolhouse Theater

What do ballroom dancing and kites have to do with racial segregation, namely -- in the case of Athol Fugard’s classic stage drama “Master Harold” … and the boys – the South African practice of apartheid?

Teeming with deep thoughts about existence, presented, with masterly skill, as engrossing drama, Mr. Fugard’s award-winning work is the beneficiary of a stellar production, directed for optimal impact by Owen Thompson, now on stage through Sept. 22 at Schoolhouse Theater in Croton Falls (N.Y.).

The great playwrights find imaginative and diverting ways to prick our conscience and provoke our curiosity about the mysteries of life. They force us to think about the human condition, in all its felicities and foibles, through the metaphorical use of familiar objects and experiences. Kites and ballroom dancing, for instance.

For Mr. Fugard, the story of Master Harold is his story, literally. He lived it as a 17-year-old White boy nicknamed Hally (short for Harold), played here by the mesmerizing and indefatigable Will DeVary.  

Hally’s parents own St. George’s Park Tea Room in the South African coastal town of Port Elizabeth, the setting of the play. Though not enamored of formal education, Hally has a voracious thirst for knowledge, and for challenging popular notions about knowledge, a trait that is nurtured by Sam (Alvin Keith), a middle-age Black man who works in the Tea Room, along with another Black man, Willie (Deven E. Haqq). They are the titular boys. All three actors speak with South African inflections, and are served well in that regard by Dialect Coach Lisa Ann Goldsmith.

Set in 1950, the entire play, running 90 minutes with no intermission, takes place in the Tea Room, which is artfully and convincingly rendered by Set Designer Tony Andrea. Lighting is by Dennis Parichy and Costumes by Heidi Leigh Hanson. 

At curtain rise, it’s nearly closing time, with table rounds pushed to the wall; a jukebox; a serving counter with stools; a blackboard with the day’s offerings; and a wall-size picture window overlooking St. George’s park on a rainy day. It adds up to a most convincing sense of time and place in which the story unfolds, exploding ultimately in a combustible climax that sends gasps through the audience. 

While Hally is nominally their boss, the ebullient Sam and Willie seem to enjoy a casual rapport with (and even fondness for) him, notwithstanding Hally’s matter-of-fact reminders of the boys’ emphatically unequal station in life.

Hally’s tendency toward bi-polarity surfaces as he is fascinated by the boys’ ballroom dancing steps, in preparation for a contest, and yet he dismisses dancing in general as a meaningless, low-brow indulgence (likely because Hally, riddled with self-doubt, is not adept at it, and so he negates the beauty – and sheer pleasure – of dancing.)

Bit by bit, we learn of Hally’s unhappy childhood and of his complicated relationship with a father, both cripple and an alcoholic, who’s laid up in the hospital. Hally’s extended phone conversations with his mother reveal the father-son relationship is fragile and fractious, with Hally fitfully apprehensive about his father returning home prematurely from his sickbed.

The father and son are seemingly worlds apart in fundamental ways, a chasm Mr. Fugard underscores, with a light touch, by the father’s favored reading matter of comic books, while his progeny probes questions of intellectual heft such as what constitutes greatness and genius in historical figures, from Napoleon to Tolstoy to Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. As is not uncommon with intellectuals, whose stock in trade is questioning everything, Halley is an avowed atheist.

Drawing on his own life experience as a member of the underclass created by the systemic oppression of apartheid, Sam inculcates in Hally the primacy of dreams as a path to finding fulfillment in life, even as, like Halley, we roller-coaster between the highs of hope and the depths of despair, a state of being that informs Halley’s world view. “It’s a bloody awful world when you come to think of it,” he tells Sam. “People can be real cruel.”  (Halley has someone specific in mind, in his own family, and might recognize another who fits that description by looking in the mirror.)

The irony is apparent: as the victims of apartheid, like Sam and Willie, wear a smile as they pursue simple pleasures like dancing to paper over their plight as officially second-class citizens, Halley, their callow overseer in the social construct of mid-20th Century South Africa, is full of confusion and anguish about his family life and his place in the world.

The three-way relationship of Hally and the boys shows glimpses of being heart-warming, until it’s alarmingly heart-wrenching. The three roles could not have been better cast by Schoolhouse. Messrs. DeVary, Keith and Haqq each is superb in plumbing the shadings of their characters, and of sharply defining both the collegiality and the unmistakable limits of their relationships.

The kinetic interplay between Hally and Sam is beautifully calibrated by the actors to prepare the audience for the emotional volcano that eventually erupts, with lava raining down on the Schoolhouse audience in a trickle of tears painting our faces, as if we were unceremoniously spit in the eye.

Will DeVary squeezes every emotional nuance out of Hally in an impressively sustained performance that approaches athleticism in its disciplined exertion that never flags. 

Alvin Keith creates a Sam full of decorous grace in his measured movements – he glides more than walks, with a bearing that manages to convey both servitude and unbowed pride. When it comes to his verbal bouts with Halley, Sam gives as good as he gets. In his own cheeky way, Sam reminds Hally that he’s a badass, so don’t mistake him for a pushover.

Devin E. Haqq’s wonderfully portrayed Willie, more servile and simple than Sam, who has some demons to purge, reminds us that words need not be spoken to elicit sympathy, as when Willie reacts to an unpleasant turn of events by suddenly widening his eyes to the size of teacup saucers, and by emitting an agonizing moan. With such unspoken gestures, Mr. Haqq speaks volumes about primal fear and rage that he douses through dancing.

In the end, Sam is the hero of the piece, who stays noble even when on the receiving end of such condescending Halleyisms as “What the hell does a Black man know about flying a kite?”

He knows this much: No matter how low you might get, almost crashing to the ground, there still is the chance to put the wind at your back, pick yourself up, muster your pride, look toward the sky, and soar.

[This is a gentle note to producers of local theater that I am attaching to my reviews: In addition to featuring playwrights and directors in the marketing materials promoting your productions, please remember to also promote cast members by listing the actors’ names in the same materials. Doing so can help fill seats by those who recognize a familiar name and buy a ticket to see and support that person.]

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