Dreamwell presents Master Harold

Dreamwell - When Dreamwell Theatre decided on this season’s theme and began casting about for “inciting theatre,” Rachel Lindhart proposed Master Harold…and the Boys. Athol Fugard’s 1982 play examining apartheid certainly is inciting.

It’s inciting enough that the apartheid government of South Africa immediately banned it. Fugard’s play casts a revealing humanist look at the consequences of oppression. It tells the story of Hally, a young white student, and his father’s African servants. Through the course of the play, we see the tensions of the outside world invade Hally’s tea room and threaten the relationships between the characters.

It’s inciting still today, because it reminds us that while apartheid is over, racial tensions in South Africa and in our country have yet to be completely resolved. “Those repressive laws have been rescinded,” Lindhart says, “[but] there is still much work to be done on racial relations and on the root causes of oppression. Those roots are very much a part of Fugard's work and resonate today as much as at any time.”

It’s inciting because it reminds us that the political is often personal. Sam and Willie are dear to Hally, but he is coming of age under a brutal regime that deprives them of their rights and humanity. If he internalizes the institutional attitudes of the day, will it shatter the idealized world of his childhood? Or is a “world without collisions” possible?

Master Harold…and the Boys will be performed on September 25 & 26 and October 2 & 3, with all performances at 7:30 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Society (10 S Gilbert Street). It stars Thomas Henrich as Hally, Roe Lloyd as Sam, and Patrick Rashed as Willie. It is directed by Rachel Lindhart. Tickets are $12 regular, $10 senior, and $8 student. Reservations can be made here or by calling. 319-541-0140.