Athol Fugard, credit to BoneauBryanBrown.com and Gregory.C
“This is the graveyard for the ones without names.” As light gradually brightens up the stage, Leon Addison Brown, who played Simon Hanabe the grave keeper, opened “The Train Driver” with his first line. The story went on as the protagonist appeared on the sanded floor. Both of the actors memorized their lines perfectly, along with the almost exact replication of a graveyard as the setting, credited to the Production Stage Manager Linda Marvel, tied the whole production well together into a piece of art.
The story was about the train driver Roelf Visagie (Ritchie Coster). He had failed to stop the train when a South African mother committed suicide with her child in front of his train. On stage, instead of showing the suicide, Athol Fugard, the playwright of this show as well as other shows like “Blood Knot” and “Coming Home”, revealed the scene mixed with feelings through the main character. Roelf interminably asked Simon for the body of a nameless woman with a baby while babbling about the incident over and over again. He talked in such an anachornic way with phrases like “I think I killed her” everywhere as part of the act throughout the play. Often time, the whole play felt like a monologue though there were two characters. The movement and the emotions hidden in the lines reveal the contradicting feelings the protagonist had ever since the accident.
As a political piece, “The Train Driver” underlay the theme of Apartheid while fluently illustrated the surface conflicts of the story. The play was actually inspired by a real life event, in which a mother was forced by her living conditions to commit suicide with all three of her kids. During the 90 minutes, it is hard to not notice the various symbols and lines illustrating the continuous poverty and disparity among people in South Africa, especially among black people, , such as “unable to make a cross for the nameless ones because the wood would be taken for fire”, even though Apartheid had ended for a period of time. Once again, this time also as the director, Mr. Fugard had brilliantly merged the guilt and many other feelings into the lines of the main character, which was presented flawlessly on stage by Ritchie Coster.
However, one major shortcoming occurred as the show went on. The language used in the play was very redundant. Though sometimes it was to reinforce the theme of the story, most of the time it was just unnecessary. Instead of grabbing the attention of the audience, the repetition pushed the focus of most people away when it occurred. In other words, the redundancy was very “influential”— in a negative way.
Though I would actually enjoy this play much more if I can understand that heavy South African accent of theirs. Otherwise, the ideas and the scenes shown in “The Train Driver” were very powerful, and most importantly, you won’t regret your 25 dollars.
(background information credited to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athol_Fugard)
What do you mean by “anarchornic?”
Also, how and why is the language redundant? Can you give us examples?
I used the wrong word for this matter. I actually meant “in a very disorder fashion”. The main character was still in shock from the accident, which then caused him to constantly refer back to the accident when he was providing information on the his background. He pulled in many details such as the ones about his wife, but then he kept referring back to the eyes of the suicide woman and the emptiness and such. As for the redundancy, I also meant the details. Just the like example I gave above, the constant flashback was too repetitive. Sure, for the “first day” in the play, it helped us to recognize the theme of poverty and post effects of Apartheid. BUT, was it really necessary for Roefl to do the whole thing once again in the “second day”? In fact, even the “days” in the play were repetitive. Was it necessary to have a “third day” in the scene?