When we hear a TV broadcaster say “suicide by train,” we suddenly tune in to get the details. The reporter goes on to tell the facts about the victim. We find out the victim’s name, possibly why he or she decided to jump into the tracks, and maybe some words from friends or family. Did you ever hear what the train driver has to say about it?
Playwright Athol Fugard pries into a subject as sensitive as suicide in The Train Driver, but turns the victim’s seat so that we observe a point of view that is not widely discussed: that of the white train driver in the era of apartheid. He plays the role of a journalist, extracting the basis of his story from a newspaper article: a black woman carrying her three children (in the play, she only has one child) steps into the track where a train is approaching and the white driver kills her. Fugard hands us a magnifying glass, allowing us to observe the aftermath from Roelf’s (Ritchie Coster) perspective. So no, we don’t actually see the accident, for those of you who are into gore. We encounter the two characters, Roelf and gravedigger, Simon (Leon Addison Brown) in an eerie graveyard setting—a small, dimly lit field of sand sprinkled with pieces of shiny rock, empty plastic bottles, shards of glass, hubcaps, abandoned wires and other miscellaneous items that are meant to represent graves in this poor squatter village. A half-view of Simon’s shabby hut barely stands upright and a junkyard car on the left completes the scene. The set, which remains stagnant for the entirety of the play, is not only tragically beautiful, but mirrors the yearning, lonesome voices of both characters.
The audience is introduced to Roelf with a thick Afrikaans accent, thick enough to make you lean your ear further in, trying to guess what he just said. The character was wonderfully realistic, but at a cost—it left me trying to fill in the blanks. To some, it may be a foolish sacrifice because his words are crucial to understanding the underlying change in the train driver’s psyche. However, Coster’s breadth of emotions, from ragingly aggressive, to painfully vexed, to unpredictably skittish, to hopeless, gives us a multi-faceted look into his dynamic psyche. His first dialogue with Simon consists of Roelf frantically demanding Simon to find the woman’s grave. He exerts his rage onto the dead woman for ruining his life, but his attitude towards her changes gradually. While Roelf is the firework, Simon is the glass of water. Although we meet Simon first, singing a sad jazz tune in his native tongue, he is dominated by Roelf’s boldness. Also bearing a thick, coarse accent (and a rather realistic limp), his character reads “frazzled, impartial grave digger.” Unfortunately, because too much of the play relies on dialogue, it may fail to capture the interest of young children or people who do not understand English very well.
Although Fugard successfully brings up issues about this racially sensitive topic, he is not so successful in how he decides to end the story. It is a rather abrupt, unnecessary attempt to bring the play to a final close.
The Train Driver played at the Signature Theater until September 23rd.
The ending does seem sprung upon the audience. I agree.