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Amazon.com:
Athol Fugard's Broadway hit was a heartbreaking microcosmic examination of the effects of the racist apartheid policies on both blacks and whites in South Africa. This taped stage production features terrific performances from Matthew Broderick and particularly from Zakes Mokae. Mokae is a waiter in a small tea shop, owned by Broderick's family. He has also been a surrogate father to Harold (Broderick), whose real father is an abusive, hospitalized drunk. Though Broderick dearly loves Mokae, his world is turned upside down by the prospect of his father's imminent return. When Mokae tries to help him prepare for the inevitable, Broderick instead turns his anger on the black worker, unleashing racist vitriol that culminates in a shockingly degrading moment that forever cuts these two friends off from each other. Powerful material that is superbly acted. --Marshall Fine |  | | | |
Average Rating : 
Rating :  - "The way we want life to be...a world without collisions."
This powerful three-character play, set in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1950, considers the interwoven relationships of young Harold (Hally), the seventeen-year-old son of the white proprietor of a tea room, and the two African men who have worked there for years. Hally has always considered Sam, the waiter, as a kind of father substitute, looking to him for guidance about the real world, since his undependable, alcoholic father has been living in an institution. When Hally's father is released from the hospital, Hally's fear of the future leads him to turn on Sam, releasing racial prejudice which has always before been hidden and damaging their relationship significantly.
Zakes Mokae portrays Sam, a person of vision and nobility who dominates the action of this powerful and poignant drama. Stunning in his ability to draw out the audience's emotions, Mokae keeps his delivery low key and his actions subtle. Matthew Broderick, as Hally, looks like a schoolboy here, but at age twenty-four in 1986, when this play was filmed, he has wide experience in the theater upon which to draw for this demanding role, and he does a terrific, if somewhat "stagey," job. John Kani, as Willie, the custodian, is a foil for both Broderick and Mokae, and while not exactly a buffoon, he is a character without subtlety or introspection, and Kani plays the role broadly.
Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg makes full use of the close-up to reveal feelings, including tears, and the action is almost completely internal. The only real movement on stage consists of Sam and Willie practicing their ballroom dancing for a contest, something that gives beauty, fun, and excitement to their lives, even though Hally demeans their efforts, explaining that "primitive black society [always] includes singing and dancing." Less a political drama than a human one, the play, based on an incident in the life of the author, rises above its immediate setting in South Africa during apartheid to consider universal feelings and human relationships. Mary Whipple
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