“Master Harold” Meaningful, But Production Flawed
BY JESSICA ROSENBERG

With the recent racial tension on campus, the time seemed right for a play addressing issues of race. “Master Harold”…and the Boys is such a play, but this weekend’s setting raises questions more about the production itself than about the play’s important message.

(photo by Areca Treon)

“Master Harold” is an autobiographical work about a turning point in the adolescent life of the playwright, Athol Fugard. He is Hally, a white teenager in 1950s South Africa, and he spends most of his days with Sam and Willy, two older black men who work in his mother’s store. 
Over the course of the play, the depth of their relationship is revealed as we learn that Hally’s childhood has been less than ideal and that Sam especially has represented a father figure in place of his real father, who begins the play in the hospital. Eventually, Hally’s growing frustration over his home life causes him to lash out at the very people who have cared for him, and it becomes apparent just how deep Apartheid runs, even in those who believe they’ve left it behind.
Hally, Willy and Sam are supposed to share a friendly if somewhat lopsided companionship with many years’ history, and this is the point where the production breaks down. From the very first scene, the stage is filled with repressed rage and anger. Sam and Willy fight rather than joke, as the direction turns their good-natured bickering into vitriol. Hally is obnoxious and mean rather than off-handedly patronizing. His characterization is the weakest point in this over-simplified production. 
The play turns on what kind of person Hally is: if he is unheeding of his prejudice, it works; if he is just a jerk all around, it doesn’t. Junior Rosa Hyde tries to get through on bluster and succeeds only in turning Hally into a completely unsympathetic figure. Instead of building toward a shocking emotional climax, the moment of greatest impact is turned into another incident in a long string of offensive incidents. There are no surprises in this far from subtle staging. 
First-years Basilio Mendez and Andy Campbell soldier gamely on as Sam and Willy respectively, making good attempts at accents and showing admirable composure. Each is very competent, but they are trapped within a production that gives them no chance to evince range. 

The production concept, that of a black woman playing the white boy, and two non-black actors in the black roles, is not the problem. It is easily believable and works well — the audience sees people, not races, in the roles. Not even the space, a corner of Philips Gym lounge which is actually quite an attractive area for a play despite background noise, is the problem. The problem is the complete misinterpretation of the play’s central character. Funny is turned into angry; despairing and frustrated are turned into angry. If everything starts out as anger, what happens when the characters are actually supposed to get angry? 
This is not a didactic, bad play. The opportunities for thought about race, privilege and the corrupting nature of power lie within it. The question is, how do they get out? Not through a production which leaves very little room to understand the characters as people rather than as types. The director, junior Claire Miller, has her heart a little too much in the right place, and shades the characters too brightly for the full picture to be seen.