Date: Fri 31-Jan-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: CAROLL

Illustration: C

Location: A8

Quick Words:

theatre-Mecca-Wharf-Harris

Full Text:

(rev "Road To Mecca" @Long Wharf, 1/31/97)

Theatre Review-

An Astounding Harris In "Road To Mecca" W/ CUT

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN - It would be a privilege to see Julie Harris in a live performance

of anything, even a beer commercial.

When her great talent is showcased in a work by the powerful South African

playwright Athol Fugard, and balanced by two other fine performers - Linda

Purl and Tom Aldredge - the result is definitely something special. And that's

what Long Wharf's current production, The Road to Mecca , is - something

special!

The play is based on a real person. The central character, Helen Martins, was

an ordinary middle-aged Afrikaaner farm wife, who was suddenly possessed,

after the death of her husband, to spend the rest of her life creating a

complex series of statues which she called "The Road To Mecca."

The sculptures were extraordinary both for their appearance - massive

compendiums of rough cement and glittering broken glass, to form camels, owls,

mermaids, wise men, and other images from a variety of religions and

mythologies - and for the impact which they had on her appalled neighbors -

bigoted, narrow-minded religious fundamentalists who viewed the creations as

either idolatrous or insane.

The hostility of her fellow townspeople turned Martins into an embattled

recluse, yet she persisted in laboring to realize her artistic vision for 17

years. Then, in the 1970s, she committed suicide, leaving behind the works

which, a generation later, have become a major tourist attraction.

Fugard's play is set in the 15th year of Martins' visionary project.

Frightened by failing eyesight and the debilities of old age, she is being

pressured by her long-time minister, Marius Byleveld, to abandon this "hobby"

and retire to an old age home run by the Dutch Reformed Church.

The drama comes through the intervention of Elsa, a young English school

teacher from the coast, the only person who has ever appreciated Helen's art,

and who, from the first moment she unexpectedly stumbled across "Mecca" during

a trip through the Karoo desert, became a treasured friend.

In response to a desperate letter from Helen, Elsa has driven 500 miles for a

one-night visit, to find out what is wrong. Helen needs Elsa's support to

muster the strength to withstand Byleveld's simplistic but well-meaning moral

coercion.

But Elsa has troubles of her own. In danger of losing her job because of her

outspoken criticisms of apartheid, and suffering the pain of a broken love

affair, she is troubled by an encounter with Patience, a native African woman

who has been turned out of the farm where she had lived and left to travel on

foot, 80 miles across the Karoo, carrying her baby and hoping to find some

relatives who would take them in.

On a symbolic level the play is strongly autobiographical, as playwright

Fugard wrestles with his own responses to public antipathy (many of his works,

which deal with the complicated relationships between black and white

Africans, were banned by the government as immoral, and vilified by radicals

as dishonest and insufficiently militant) and with his fears of losing

artistic inspiration - of being unable to write anymore, especially when, as a

recovering alcoholic, he had stopped drinking.

In her performance as Helen, Julie Harris is astounding. Doddering about the

stage, clumsily attempting to adjust the myriad candles she keeps burning, she

is able to transform miraculously into the voice of impassioned genius,

solitary but triumphant, as she recalls the gleaming, Byzantine vision of

light that fuels her gallant lonely struggle.

As the secretive, emotionally exhausted but genuinely caring Elsa, Linda Purl

has the strength to provide a sympathetic and effective counterweight.

As the rigidly devout Rev Byleveld, Tom Aldredge gives an extremely convincing

portrait of an Afrikaaner Dominie who loves Helen from a distance but can

never understand, and who feels both spiritually and emotionally threatened by

the passion of her existence.

John Tillinger does a masterful job of direction here, and James Noone's sets

are very effective at creating the feel of what Miss Helen's home must have

been like. Also, Dennis Parichy's lighting contributed to the strange, magical

glittering world.