By Carol Davis
SAN DIEGO– South African Playwright Athol Fugard’s Road to Mecca is currently being mounted on the Lyceum Stage at The San Diego Repertory Theatre. Fugard’s beautifully written drama stars Kandis Chappell (Helen), Amanda Sitton (Elsa) and Armin Shimerman (Marius Byleveld) who are all at their peak.
Associate artistic director Todd Salovey directs with sensitivity and full command of the playwright’s themes: coming to grips with one’s own mortality and how best to live out those final years alone doing what lights your inner soul regardless of other’s opinions and prejudices.
Helen Martins is in her seventies. She has lived in the South African region known as the Karoo (New Bethesda) all her Life. She attended church regularly and was admired by her neighbors. Her husband died ten years ago causing life altering changes in ‘Miss Helen’s’ world.
Helen stopped attending church and began transforming her well-groomed property into a haven or dwelling place, if you will, for her creative images (200 of them) that some of her neighbors looked upon as icons. The statues, all facing east toward Mecca, include owls, Buddha’s, camels, pyramids, ancient gods and goddesses. Most are larger than life.
The inside of her house became laden with strings of small decorative lights, candles and colored glass reflecting light that became her mantra. After Helen left the church and began placing her statues outside while turning the inside into a beacon of light, the locals began doubting her sanity, considered her mad and questioned her ability to live alone and care for herself.
Her old and dear friend Pastor Marius Byleveld, along with some of the neighbors were so concerned about her welfare that Marius went to speak to her about selling her property and moving into a care home for the elderly where she could be looked after. Marius is also a secret admirer of Miss Helen, but doesn’t quite know how to let her in on his secret nor does he understand her need to create her statues. Right now his main goal is to have Helen consent to moving. Helen panics with indecision when Marius confronts her.
She sends out an SOS letter to her friend Elsa, who lives and teaches in Cape Town South Africa about 700 miles away. When the show opens Elsa has just made the trip down from Cape Town to look in on her friend because of the disturbing message in the letter she received from Helen.
Elsa is young, determined and one of the two remaining friends Helen has left. After the initial small talk, we learn that Helen’s hands were burnt by a fire started in her house from one of the candles left unattended. This revelation then leads to the disclosure that Marius is pressuring her to leave her homestead and move into the confined spaces of a nursing home where she won’t be subjected to those dangers.
When Helen and Elsa get to the heart of what’s eating at her and it is revealed that her creative light is fading, that she is deathly afraid of the darkness closing in on her and she lacks the ability to make more art, the play takes on an urgency not seen in the long exposition leading up to this point.
Both Chappell and Sitton are brilliant in the give and take that nibbles at the heart of anyone who feels their vulnerability increase with age. It also highlights the declining strength to complete life’s work when physical limitations like arthritis creep in. Each of the women, in their own right possesses an intensity that when combined can overcome anything.
Life, however, isn’t always that simple as Chappell shows us in Helen’s frustrated and lonesome need to express herself. Chappell, whose acting credits and achievements are as long as the California coast, fills Helen’s shoes meticulously as her character goes through the ups and downs of Helen’s internal struggles, vacillating and worried on one side and determined on the other.
Equally compelling is Sitton’s portrayal of a frustrated yet loving ally, who wants the best for her elderly and gifted friend. She carefully works at unraveling the complexities of Helen’s dilemma that in turn show us her range and excellence as a performer while going from compassion to support to outright rage.
Shimerman, who performed so brilliantly last year in The Seafarer also at the Rep.) is right on target as the concerned, yet condescending Pastor looking out for one of his flock. His portrayal makes you want to feel sorry for him at his lack of communication in expressing his feelings toward Helen on the one hand, and disdain for what he wants to do to her on the other.
The play is set in 1974 apartheid South Africa where being free, from just about anything from racial prejudice to artistic freedom was a challenge. For Helen the glow she felt inside was the guiding light to her freedom to express and to live.
Kudos to Giulio Cesare Perrone for his amazing sculptures that on some level become the fourth character in Fugard’s play. Ross Glanc’ s lighting, while appearing somewhat uneven the night I attended, lends just the right illumination. Mary Larson’s costumes, particularly Helen’s worn orange sweater, reflect each character’s personality.
It might be interesting to note that Fugard’s play is based on the real life person of Helen Martins, ‘a self taught visionary’ whose childhood home was transformed into the “Owl House”, a major landmark that now attracts more than 130,000 visitors a year.
It’s definitely worth a try.
See you at the theatre.
Dates: Through October 17th
Organization: San Diego Repertory Theatre
Phone: 619-544-1000
Production Type: Drama
Where: 79 Horton Plaza San Diego CA 92101
Ticket Prices: $29.00-$47.00
Web: sdrep.org
Venue: Lyceum Theater
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Theatre reviewer Davis is based in San Diego