The Island
Through Jan. 26 at the Yale cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. (203) 432-1566, www.yalecabaret.org
By Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona. Directed by Kate Attwell. assistant Director: Gabriel DeLeon. Scenic Designer: Kristen Robinson. Costume Designer: Seth Bodie. Lighting Designer: Oliver Wason. Sound Designer: Matt Otto. Stage Manager: Louisa Balch. Producer: Lico Whitfield. Performed by Paul Pryce (John), Winston Duke (Winston) and singers from the Yale a cappella chorus Shades: Carol Crouch, Edwina Kisanga, Dianne Lake, Ian Miller, Naima Sakande.
New Haven has a special relationship with the works of South African playwright Athol Fugard dating back to his first American successes. The Long Wharf did a couple of his one-acts (including The Island) in 1974, then the Yale Rep premiered Master Harold… And the Boys and Place for Pigs in the ’80s. In recent years, the Long Wharf coaxed Fugard out of semi-retirement and did three successive world or East Coast premieres of his plays, which remain as strident, socially conscious and politically astute as they ever were.
This wondrous production of The Island, which Fugard created in conjunction with its original cast members ( a collaboration illegal under the apartheid laws in place when it was written) understands that this script begins conversationally, then builds into clear poltical discourse and well-articulated beliefs, then must be grandly and unapologetically theatrical as those ideas are classically enforced in a provocative play-within-a-play.
As with another classic freewheeling 1970s two-hander recently produced at the Yale Cabaret, Sam Shepard’s Cowboy Mouth, The Island is a fuller and richer and deeper production than audiences have any right to expect. It takes full advantage of the small Cabaret space, leaping from a confined unvarnished platform in the center of the room—representing the cell where two political dissidents are being held—to the men’s full-bodied, audience-circling interpretation of Sophocles’ Antigone.
This The Island has two strong, in-the-moment, physically and intellectually challenging performances. That’s why the play usually gets staged: if you find two worthy actors you can do it anywhere. But this production, directed by Kate Attwell, adds confident theatrical trappings to that essential naturalism. There’s a live five-person a cappella choral group singing between scenes. There are long silent periods where the characters dress themselves and make up their faces for their Antigone performance. There are clever lighting cues (designed by Oliver Wason) which shift the audience’s attention subtly without being obtrusive. There are long offstage passages of unintelligible gruntings and moanings in the prison yard.
The blend is masterful. The designs support the players rather than undercutting them. Surrounding the small wooden platform of a mainstage with the audience (who sit mostly at two long room-length tables) lends focus and also adds a useful stifling effect. Paul Pryce (as John, in prison for his ties to outlawed political organizations) and Winston Duke, as—uh, Winston, a role named for the man who originally played it, Winston Ntshona; the character is in jail for publicly burning an identity document) rail and rant and confess and cry and laugh and joke in just the right scale for the room, at just the right volume.
This whole Island thing just fits—fits the space, fits the actors, fits a time when radical ideas of freedom are again held suspect, fits a month when Nelson Mandela is back in the news, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday just happened, and Black History month is days away. Most of all, it fits the internal rhythms of the actors, who have no trouble grasping the easy banter and African dialects of these characters, but also transcend them with a universal sense of drama and international issues of liberty.