MTC: African Drama on Inauguration Night Glengarry in Ross??

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.

Producing David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross is a big change for the always-civil Ross Valley Players. This script, says Director James Dunn, is “edgier than most,” and the theatre cautions audiences at the outset that “adult language” is used in the play. In fact, adult language (depending of what adults you hang out with) plays a major role, as the characters spray each other, their clients, their business, with undiluted venom.

But that’s only one part of Mamet’s hard, often comic style. Here’s a sample from the first scene, in which agent Shelly Levene confers with his boss at their usual Chinese restaurant: “. . . You . . . Moss . . . Roma . . . look at the sheets . . . look at the sheets. Nineteen eighty, eighty-one . . . eighty-two . . . six months of eighty-two . . . who’s there? Who’s up there?” Levene’s staccato is as revealing as a facial tic. He is desperate, and we are all eavesdropping. The language might even be lifted from the playwright’s own experience in a similar Chicago office. Mamet’s vision of sales pressure in real estate won Glengarry Glen Ross a Pulitzer in 1984.

And it has juicy parts for actors. (There are no women in the script.) RVP’s Bob Wilson says that more than seventy actors turned out for the auditions, and seven were selected. With skill and purpose, James Dunn keeps each character authentic and separate.

Shelly Levene (Norman Hall) is frenzied for his office’s good leads, which he’s sure are being withheld. He’ll work a deal – any deal – to get back in the game, and he uses every technique he knows to get what he wants.

But Williamson, the boss, (H.D. Southerland) is a cooled-down policy man; he’s “not permitted to give premium leads to low achievers,” he says, not even when they pay for them. Levene must be content with leads from the B list.

A fast-paced complaint duet between two other agents, Moss (Richard Conti) and Aaronow (Tim Earls) generate a plot for their own benefit; steal the good leads, and sell them to a competing agency. Seriously? Could it work? “Are we talking, or are we speaking?”

But now we see the No. 1 seller at work. Richard Roma (Eric Burke) shows his style with a fellow single diner at the same restaurant. In smoothly crafted conversation, Roma purrs, “What’s special? What draws us?” and begins to reveal his pitch. James Lingk (Stephen Dietz) is the target; there’s no way he’ll get away without signing a contract.

The second act set (wonderful work by Bruce Lackovic) shows the office’s gritty interior with the El train making occasional passes overhead, trash cans stacked outside and “Caution” tape over the broken window. A no-nonsense policeman (Jason Souza) is taking names and asking questions. The filing cabinet has been rifled, and the leads are missing. Who did it?

This is not the best time for one of the agents to enter and crow about the big sale he just made, but it’s an excellent time for James Lingk to show up. Disorder’s in control. “What do we have to do to make it right?”

David Mamet’s play offers no easy answers. The last line says it all.

Glengarry Glen Ross will play at the Barn Theatre in the Marin Art & Garden Center through Feb. 22. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays. Ticket prices range from $15 to $25. For reservations or more information, see the website, www.rossvalleyplayers.com or call the box office, 456-9555.