MTC: African Drama on Inauguration Night

Was it uncanny good timing or fine marketing that led Marin Theatre Company to open its apartheid drama, My Children! My Africa! on Barack Obama’s Inauguration night, the day following Marin Luther King’s birthday? The opening night juxtaposition brought a lively, warmed-up audience to Athol Fugard’s play about a segregated South African school in 1985. Unfortunately, the play itself failed to sustain the upbeat mood.

Fugard drew on South Africa’s apartheid system for the force behind much of his work, such as Blood Knot and “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys. In My Children! My Africa!, the playwright examines its effect on education through the voices of a dedicated black teacher, Mr. M., Thami, his best male student, and Isabel, a white girl from a prep school in town. All the action takes place at the segregated school in the black part of town called “The Location.” A school debate on women’s rights in front of an invisible school audience has brought them all together.

In the first of many monologues that make up almost half of this play, Isabel describes the conditions in The Location, the greyness of the school. Feeling an outsider at first, she says she soon felt “a strong sense of myself” and “discovered a whole new world.” She wants to know more.

Not long after, Mr. M., the idealistic teacher who arranged the debates, admits his favoritism toward Thami and delivers another monologue about his love of the Chinese philosopher, Confucius. He also admits to feeling a sense of peril now because the wild animal Hope “is prowling around in my heart.”

Thami’s own monologue comes later, after a rift is developing between him and his teacher. Beginning with an African child’s song about the school bell, he explains that he has always made his teachers happy, but he doesn’t trust that anymore.
Whenever one character is speaking to the audience, the other characters either stand frozen or go sit in the wings.

As the play’s planned debate practice goes forward, the two teenagers drill each other on aspects of 19th century British lit, but neither of them has much enthusiasm anymore, and Thami wants to drop out. Other students there are doing the same; attendance has fallen off all over school.

In the best monologue of the play, Mr. M. woos these children and the audience with a passionate defense of the power of words, achievable only through education. Describing an imagined walk north through the length of Africa, he “sees” all its countryside, its animals and geography and people, a journey he’s made with the help of books.

As Mr. M., L. Peter Callender is entirely believable as the dignified teacher we all wanted. His accent and voice are pure music. Lloyd Roberson II (Thami) and Laura Morache (Isabel) are both too old to play teenagers, but their acting and timing are faultless.

Josh Costello’s direction, as well as Ted Crimy’s intervals of African music and sound and Eric Sinkkonen’s stylized schoolhouse all contribute to the feeling of being in another country in another time. That’s part of what removes this drama from modern audiences.

When the play premiered in 1987, its author, who is white, had already left South Africa and was living in the United States. The country’s black leader, Nelson Mandela was still in prison. After majority rule had been achieved, Fugard went back, Mandela became the country’s first President and My Children! My Africa! became part of history.

My Children! My Africa! will have a short run at the Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley, Tuesdays through Sundays, through Feb. 8. Times vary, and ticket prices range from $31 - $51, with discounts available for seniors and students.
A separate program celebrating African music and dance will be performed Monday, Feb. 9, at 7:30 p.m. For complete information on both these events, see www.marintheatre.org or call 388-5208.