'Master Harold'... and the boys

Thirty-four years after its premiere in 1982 at the Yale Repertory Theatre and its subsequent Broadway run, after watching the Signature Theatre's revival of South African playwright Athol Fugard's "'Master Harold'... and the boys," it became quite apparent that there needs to be a wider discourse on race relations and white fragility in theatre playhouses, especially in the U.S. No worries, it's still astonishing and revelatory.

But as time passes, the show really exemplifies an example of global white supremacy and the distances to which people of color and other 'subgroups' have to voyage to make white people comfortable. With Fugard's hard-boiled tour de force, itself an evaluation of white supremacy and racial segregation in South Africa two years after apartheid was enforced through legislation by Daniel Fran�ois Malan's National Party, the writer subtly delved into the erosion and exploitation of our humanity and the deterioration and depravity to which 'minorities suffer.

One late afternoon in 1950, within the St. George's Hotel Tea Room, in the provincial town of Port Elizabeth, the relationship of three very different men are unraveled forever. Cloudburst has halted the usual flood of customers, leaving two middle-aged black men, Sam (played by Leon Addison Brown) and Willie (played by Sahr Ngaujah), both waiters at the establishment, with very little to do other than maintenance.

With his racist, alcoholic, and verbally abusive father left hospitalized, and his mother attending to him, Hally, a 17-year-old white Afrikaner boy and the son of the establishment's owners, is left in the care of the help. Excuse me, Freudian slip, I mean, the waiters.

A prep school student, Hally has to write a 500-word composition for school "describing an annual event of cultural or historical significance." So, when Willie insists that Sam assist him in preparation for a ballroom dancing contest he intends to enter, the young boy begins to craft his essay around this event, noting "that in strict anthropological terms the culture of a primitive black society includes its dancing and singing."

While his bigoted English teacher may likely disapprove, you can't knock Hally for being a master of spin: "Your war-dance has been replaced by the waltz," he tells Sam and Willie rather matter of fact. If only he believed what he was saying.

Throughout the narrative, ballroom dancing is used as a metaphor; in this case, it's a world where people with the aptitude to gracefully dance without colliding into other another on the dance floor is a reflection of how life should be. But as time passes and with his mother phoning to report his father's medical conditions periodically, Hally's latent racism bubbles to the surface and he begins to lash out at the men, particularly to Sam, his surrogate father figure. This ends in disaster.

With a set designed by Christopher H. Barreca, soft lighting by Stephen Strawbridge and direction by Fugard himself, "'Master Harold'... and the boys" is worthy of a Broadway transfer. Noah Robbins seems cut from the same cloth as actors like �eljko Ivanek and Matthew Broderick, who have starred in the original out-of-town production and original film of "'Master Harold'... and the boys," respectively, and who also starred in a production of "Brighton Beach Memoirs," similar to Robbins.

With credits that include a Broadway production of "Arcadia," as well as memorable off-Broadway performances in "Punk Rock" and "The Twenty-Seventh Man," Robbins has been cast as the Angry Young Man du jour, and naturally, his performance as nervy and narcissistic Hally is a direct hit.

As the rough-and-tumble Willie, Sahr Ngaujah, who took home Tony Award and Olivier Award nominations for a "Fela!", really strips down the cocksure and vocational black man for a nuanced and multi-dimensional performance.

Elegantly dressed in formal attire, as the sophisticated Sam, Leon Addison Brown creates a simmering and tumultuously titillating emotional performance, especially in the second act. Subtle, sly and cerebral, while Addison's performance does not merit the billowing barbarity triggered by the Harry character in the second act that Zakes Mokae conveyed in the Broadway production, his the deep hurt in his expression equally matches this rendition.

Like the character, when he is deeply insulted and humiliated by Harry towards the end of the play (no spoilers!), Addison's pain registers as intellectual and philosophical, like he's pondering the universe for answers and also hurting for Harry. It's riveting.

Much of Fugard's early work was presented to sequestered spectators in efforts to avoid censorship. However, when it was originally released, the play was banned by the South African government. With no one to produce the play, it became the first of his plays to premiere in another country, eventually landing in New York and later winning a 1983 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play and a 1984 London Evening Standard Award for Best Play. Although Apartheid, which began in 1948, ended officially in 1994, it wasn't until 2012 when the show was revived and premiered in South Africa for the play's 30th anniversary celebration.

Fugard, who has dedicated his life's work to opposing the system of apartheid, however, has lived to see the advent of the born-free generation and the rise of racial tensions, which continue to simmer. But his work has not dwindled and while the writer may have moved away from crafting political dramas, now 84, he directs this production-as is he did for the original -- with the same firebrand outrage, only this time the play seems to build into a molasses -- slow, snowball-effect avalanche that drips with uncertainly and pessimism.

In other words, this semi-autobiographical tale (the anti-hero and main character, Harold, is a nod to his birth name) seems to be directed by man pondering not only his homeland in the disbandment of South Africa's biggest Afrikaner nationalist hate-group, but also the future of civilization and radicalization of systemic oppression.

More than diverse casting and increased funding of the arts, perhaps Fugard's dream of true equality could be possible, at least in the theatre if show people and audiences come to an understanding that empathy on issues should not first be lectured through the lens of a white gaze. Perhaps nursing the tears and discomfort of straight white people to get a deeper understanding of an issue they may not understand through the eyes of an "outsider" is the rub.

The tears and our pain of minorities, regardless of gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion, creed or race, as in the case of "'Master Harold'... and the boys," should not be viewed as cosmetic nor as garnishes on top of small talk on the ride home after the table or around even around dinner table. That pain and heartache of minorities should not continue to be used as a balm for straight white people regardless of circumstance.

Diverse perspectives matter, which is why Fugard's opus is so tantalizing with this recent revival, because many may believe that this is a story about the young white pilgrim youth and his dysfunctional family in post-Apartheid South Africa. But, this is a truly a tragedy about two two middle-aged African servants trying, and feasibly failing, to prevent a young white child from growing up bitter, contrite, and dogmatic only to repeat a never-ending cycle.

It's no different from the experience of so many minorities and outcasts, trying to instill some knowledge into the elite and ultimately failing because the elite refuse to have empathy outside of their circle. Now, that's a startling revelation.

"'Master Harold'... and the boys" runs through December 11 at Signature Theatre, 480 W. 42nd St. For information or tickets, call 212-244-7529 or visit www.signaturetheatre.org