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The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek
Reviewed by Vanessa Cate
The Fountain Theatre
Through Dec. 14
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At 82, Athol Fugard – self-proclaimed “outsider artist” and renowned playwright – continues to create works that are deeply connected to his home of South Africa and its struggles with apartheid.
The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek, inspired in part by the experience of a real man, premiered off-Broadway earlier this year at New York’s Signature Theatre. It is currently being presented at The Fountain Theatre, which Fugard considers his “artistic home on the West Coast”.
Act I takes place in 1983. Nukain Mabuza (Thomas Silcott) works on an Afrikaner farm, and endures by channeling his creative energy into painting rocks. Every Sunday for years, Mabuza has painted vibrant colors and patterns onto the rocks on the land, creating a beautiful “garden of flowers”. The garden is his life’s work, but now he is approaching the end. Aged and tired, he has only one rock left to paint – the largest one of all. The prospect looms over him like an unavoidable future.
With him is a young and curious boy named Bokkie (Philip Solomon), who is desperate to learn and experience everything he can, and who looks up to Mabuza, calling him “tata” (father) and carting around his paints.
With Bokkie’s help, Mabuza paints his final work of art, but this time, instead of painting it in his typical style, he paints an image that signifies his life story: himself as a man standing on his own. The rock is also given large eyes that suggest that the land itself sees and knows all.
Elmarie Kleynhans (Susanne Spoke), wife to the farm owner, interrupts at the triumphant moment. Mabuza, just a moment ago so proud and free, reverts to submission. Elmarie doesn’t like this new rock and orders Mabuza to wipe the paint off.
Act II takes place twenty years later. Now a grown-up, Bokkie, whose full name is Jonathan Sejake (Gilbert Glenn Brown), returns to the land with his own bag of paint to make sure that his mentor’s legacy is maintained. But when he meets Elmarie, his plans are put on hold; instead, these two people with radically opposing ideas share a crucial and difficult conversation.
The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek is simple and precise, and deals gracefully with complex and timeless themes using only three characters who play out the story amidst dirt and rocks (an impressive set by Jeffrey McLaughlin). The conversations the three characters have reveal the frustrations, misconceptions, and passions that aren’t often communicated but are forever a source of tension in South Africa and elsewhere.
The script deals not only with racial issues, but also beautifully comments on an artist’s need to create and the human need to leave a legacy. And as Fugard himself reflects, “There must come a point in an artist’s life when you have to confront the possibility that it is all over.”
The play may or may not be Fugard’s final one (we hope not), but just as the boulder loomed over Mabuza, so this play brings to mind a mortality that can’t be ignored, and that we all have to find a way to deal with.
Director Simon Levy aims for realism. What emerges are lovely performances and an admirable and accessible simplicity. I only wished that the mythical qualities of Mabuza’s work and Fugard’s words were more reflected in the style of the performances.
The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave. Los Angeles CA 90029; Fri.- Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 & 7 p.m., Mon. 8 p.m. (no Nov. 27 or Nov. 8 7 p.m. performance); through Dec. 14 .(323) 663-1525; www.FountainTheatre.
