South-African playwright Athol Fugard continues his ongoing relationship with LA's Fountain Theater with the U.S. premiere of his latest drama, The Train Driver,. The 99-seat Fountain has mounted four previous works by Fugard, beginning with The Road to Mecca in 2000. All the works have been treated to excellent productions and won numerous prizes, which is undoubtedly why Fugard, who now lives in southern California, considers the Fountain his artistic home.
Fugard writes tight, short, powerful dramas about social and racial issues in South Africa; The Train Driver is no different in that regard. A two-hander set in the primitive graveyard outside a squatter's camp in Motherwell, near Port Elizabeth, the play deals with the confrontation between Simon (Adolphus Ward), the old black man who minds the graveyard, and Roelf (Morian Higgins), a bereft white Afrikaans train driver who shows up unexpectedly one evening in 2001.
Roelf's torment, we soon learn, is the result of an accident that occurred while he was at the controls of his train, when a young mother holding a child suddenly stepped out in front of him on the railroad tracks. An inquest absolved him of blame, but he can't forgive himself for her death. "I'm a killer," he tells Simon in a confessional speech. He chose only to see the tracks on that fateful night, not the reality of the woman and the squalid conditions of her life.
Roelf is desperate to find the woman's grave, apologize to her for his moral blindness and indifference, purge himself of his guilt. Problem is, she is one of the "nameless ones" whose brief, tragic lives led to this bleak graveyard where dented hubcaps and rusted tailpipes serve as tombstones. Simon has no idea where the woman is buried but, out of compassion and understanding, invites Roelf to stay with him while his search for inner peace -- and reconciliation--continues.
Although much of The Train Driver's action has taken place in the past and must therefore be dramatized via exposition, Fugard is a skilled enough playwright to keep forward motion going. Also, his use of language is both poetic and pungent. Above all, what makes The Train Driver work is Fugard's heartfelt, fearless willingness to plunge deep into South Africa's heart of darkness.
Fugard is helped considerably as well by the superb acting of Higgins and Ward, and by Stephen Sachs' sensitive direction.
