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My Children! My Africa!
Reviewed by Jessica Salans
Actors Co-op
Through May 3
Playwright, actor, novelist and director Athol Fugard is best known for his political and social dramas focusing on Apartheid in South Africa. As he participated in the anti-Apartheid movement, his work and his personal life came under threat by the national government. It was illegal for Fugard to have what the South Africans call “colored” actors on his stage. He instead had to pretend his actors were servants to him. Many of his plays, steeped in South African politics, were banned from being produced and published in his home country, until Apartheid ended in 1994.
In his 1989 play My Children! My Africa!, a “colored” educator-mentor by the name of Mr. M. (Rodrick Jean-Charles) works with a young, brilliant protégée, Thami (Aaron Jennings) – also “colored” — and Isabel, an open-minded, white girl Hermione Granger (Maurie Speed) from the next town over. The whip-smart students are brought under the tutelage of Mr. M. in hopes of winning a regional literary competition, to represent how the two races can not only integrate but also flourish.
Hope is hitched within all three characters. Isabel reveres her friendship with Thami, finding joy in his wit, exploring a new culture outside her claustrophobic environment. Thami is swept away by his faith in a boiling insurrection and Mr. M., with deep care for both of his students, is weary of his hope, telling the audience, “Hope…don’t be fooled by its gentle name. It is as dangerous as Hate and Despair.” For a person of black skin in Mr. M’s world, hope is usually met with those antonyms.
Actors Co-op’s production is not as emotionally effective as it wants to be. Fugard allows his characters to soliloquize their visions of the world on soap boxes, speeches that lack a sense of discovery that the audience can realize with the actors. The heart-breaking collapse of Thami and Mr. M’s relationship is muted from a rather aggressive take on the role by Jean-Charles. Speed is adept in performance (although perhaps too speedy in her deliveries) and both she and Jennings are rooted, confidently charismatic actors. But their grounded performances almost inhibit the vehement intensity that can spring from an 18-year-old on a fiery high.
At that ripe age, opinion is scripture. Teachers and parents, the teen can feel, have gotten it all wrong and now, on teenagers’ emergence into adulthood, they alone understand how things should be done. Thami is this emphatic teen, and Jennings is disciplined, almost wise, in his arguments. Contrasting Jennings’s performance against Jean-Charles’ frequently hot-blooded approach, I found myself siding with Thami’s rationalized views on the insurrection.
Fugard’s subject matter resonates in our own era of police brutality against marginalized communities. As actress Veralyn Jones said during the Stage Raw Theater Awards Monday evening, the struggle between black and white is always going to be a timely topic, one which needs to be examined and discussed. While this production of My Children! My Africa! may not leave one emotionally wrung-out, Fugard’s text nonetheless leaves one ruminating.
Actors Co-op at the Crossley Theatre; 1760 N Gower St., Hlywd.; Fri.- Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m.; through May 3. https://actorsco-op.org/wp3/
