What does an emotionally disturbed man, a graveyard, and a train have in common? It is not a question many of us face on a daily basis, but the answer is the source of Athol Fugard’s new play, The Train Driver.
The audience first meets Simon (Leon Addison Brown). We learn that Simon is a gravedigger. As Simon is working, a loud ruckus comes and we meet Roelf (Ritchie Coster). Roelf asks Simon to direct him to any new grave of a woman and her baby. According to Roelf, a woman with her baby jumped in front of his moving train and he couldn’t do anything about. Afterwards, Roelf experienced visions of him pulverizing the woman. Ultimately, causing him to lose his job, his family, and his sanity. Throughout the performance, Roelf keeps trying to find the grave in order to scream at her for all the pain he caused her.
The play wasn’t just a story about a man confronting his emotions; its sole purpose was to teach the audience that blacks still face poverty in South Africa today. Athol Fugard showed this with his use of innuendos. The set is one huge innuendo and it deserves credit. At first, it didn’t look like a graveyard. Instead it looked like a junkyard with the amount of scrap metal around and even a defunct car. As the play progressed, the audience is allowed to zoom on more innuendos. Simon’s living conditions are one of them. Simon lived in a small hut with no electricity. He only had a candle for light and he still used it very efficiently. The last two were because of the set design, but the final one was revealed in dialogue. It was less subtle, but more effective. Roelf shows Simon the news article that talked about how Roelf’s train ran over the woman. As Simon was going to grab the article, Roelf says that he doubts that Simon even knows how to read and Roelf is right. As Roelf starts reading the article, the audience learns that the setting is around 2010. To know that blacks live in terrible conditions even today, it was a bit exaggerated, but it served its purpose of informing the audience.
One scene that Athol Fugard doesn’t show is the reason why Roelf is in disarray. The audience knows how Roelf feels about the woman and how she had a profound effect on him. It would have been interesting to see why the woman jumped with her baby. What was she thinking? Did she want to make a statement? Why take her baby with her too? This wasn’t a major issue because of how well both characters were portrayed. Here, the clothes didn’t make the men, but the men made the clothes. The rags worn by Simon or the baggy sweatpants worn by Roelf didn’t feel like an article of clothing. Instead, it felt like an extension of their respective characters.
The Train Driver is filled with turns and epiphanies. On the outside, the play looks like a man versus self theme, but if one is willing to look past this façade, he or she will see something different. Athol Fugard does a good job at implying apartheid isn’t over yet and that many South African blacks face terrible life conditions.
If Fugard told us why thy woman jumped, would that have strengthened this play or rather diminished its power? After all, we are drawn into the drama by the mystery of it all.
That would have strengthened the play in my opinion. It would have given the audience a better understanding of the woman. What were the circumstances of her jumping? Why did she drag her baby along? Did she want to portray a political message?
It all goes back to my taste. I like it when books/movies/plays explain everything at the end and leave nothing for guessing.
This has been my first Fugard production, but I was wondering…are other Fugard plays similar? Are there also little nuances that Fugard doesn’t explain, leaving the audience to guess?