Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 3, 1990 TAG: 9004030316
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Typically, the South African playwright is concerned with issues of freedom. This time, however, the subject is personal and artistic freedom as opposed to collective political freedom.
Mary Best-Bova is directing the two-act drama, which has a cast of two women and a man. It runs through April 22.
"The Road to Mecca" is Mill Mountain's first Theatre B production since January 1989. The theater, which served as a rehearsal room as well as an intimate alternative production space, closed soon after the run of "Home" to make way for fifth-floor remodeling at Center in the Square.
The new Theatre B is on the first floor of Center on Church, the new wing of Center in the Square. The entrance is at 20 E. Church Ave. in downtown Roanoke.
Fugard has aroused the enmity of the South African government with his examination of apartheid in such plays as "Master Harold . . . and the Boys" and "The Blood Knot," which inaugurated the original Theatre B in 1987.
In "The Road to Mecca," set in 1974, he takes up the story of an elderly woman artist in a rural South African village. Miss Helen, as she is known, began obsessively making eccentric sculptures after the death of her husband.
They stand in an offstage garden, facing east (toward Mecca). They are resented by the Afrikaner townspeople both as apparent idols (Miss Helen is not a churchgoer) and as symbols of Miss Helen's nonconformity.
In the play, a local clergyman named Marius Blyleveld tries to persuade the village's only free spirit to move into a nursing home. Resistant, but unsure of her ability to prevail, Miss Helen summons a young friend named Elsa Barlow to help.
Elsa is a liberal teacher and an advocate of self-reliance at all costs. She arrives to do battle with Blyleveld over the disposition of Miss Helen, and in the course of the contest all three characters learn something about themselves and about the nature of friendship and trust.
"It truly is a play about illumination in everyone's soul for freedom of expression," Best-Bova said.
Though focused on an Afrikaner village, she said, the play examines conservative communities in general, and there is a love story for good measure.
It was inspired by the story of a real Miss Helen in New Bethesda, which is an existing village in South Africa's rugged Karoo region.
In the Mill Mountain production, Basia McCoy is Miss Helen, Leticia Copeland is Elsa, and Warren Watson portrays Marius Blyleveld.
Sets for "The Road to Mecca" are by Mill Mountain resident designer John Sailer. The costumes are by Mimi Hodgin.
"The Road to Mecca" opens tonight in Theatre B and runs through April 22. Evening performances will take place tonight through Thursday at 7:30 and Friday and Saturday at 8. There will be matinees at 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are $8. There are no reserved seats. Discounts are available to students, senior citizens and groups of 15 or more. Unsold tickets are available at half price (cash only) from 6 to 6:30 p.m. weeknights and from 6:30 to 7 p.m. weekends. The box office telephone number is 342-5740.
by CNB