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“MASTER HAROLD”
…and the boys
Steppenwolf for Young Adults
At
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
www.steppenwolf.org
1650 North Halsted Street
Chicago, Illinois 60614
312.335.1650
Martha Lavey: Artistic Director
David Hawkanson: Executive Director
By: Athol Fugard
Starring:
Sam: Cedric Young
Willie: Kenn E. Head
Hally: Nick Ferrin
Director: K. Todd Freeman
Casting Director: Erica Daniels
Assistant Director: Audrey Francis
Scenic Designer: Scott Neale
Costume Designer: Ana Kuzmanic
Lighting Designer: Keith Parham
Sound Designer: Victoria DeIorio
Choreographer: Stacey Flaster
Dialect Coach: Eva Breneman
Stage Manager: Michelle Medvin
Stage Management Apprentice: Kim Benware
Publicist: William Nedved
Corporate Sponsor of Arts Exchange: Kraft Foods Inc.
Exclusive Sponsor of Steppenwolf for Young Adults:
The Chicago Community Trust
Susan Weinrebe
October 14, 2005
Sometimes pronounced, “apart hate,” Apartheid, the curious institution of South African separation of all races from whites, which lasted from 1948 to 1994, is the subject of “MASTER HAROLD” …and the boys.
Set in a café with sets of doors labeled “Whites Only” and “Net Blankes,” the stage would otherwise look like any other smallish restaurant/bar combination. There are a few tables and chairs, a counter, some stools, and a jukebox. The confines of the little room, a metaphor for the constraints placed upon the races under Apartheid, is a physical presence and the first of several other symbols.
Three characters carry the momentum of “MASTER HAROLD,” and the actors succeed brilliantly. We first meet Willie and Sam, the two black men who work at the bar. Willie is nervously practicing for an upcoming dance contest and Sam, the older and worldlier of the pair, is coaching him.
But Willie isn’t the only one to benefit from Sam’s mentoring. When young Hally enters, it’s quickly clear that Sam has also guided him through the years, and more, been a surrogate father in the emotional absence of the teen’s alcoholic parent.
They say that an animal, even the meekest of prey, will fight if cornered. So, when Hally is desperate not to have his father come home from the hospital, he is caught between an iron-willed mother and abusive father. He turns on Sam, attacking him in a particularly ugly way, because he cannot confront his parents, the real source of his misery.
Robert Frost’s, The Road Not Taken, addressed the retrospective instant of decision that often changes the course of one’s life. That moment in the play is a tragic epiphany for Sam and the fulcrum upon which Fugard elevates his message. Transcending the more commonplace cruelty of an ungrateful “child,” Hally’s refusal to contemplate the effect of his repudiation of his best friend, Sam, is ultimately a statement about power under the segregated system.
As Hally, Nick Ferrin possesses the youthful appearance to portray a coltish young man. During a climactic phone conversation with his mother, Mr. Ferrin’s skill in managing his stance, facial expressions, and the vocal nuances of a boy pleading with a parent, made his misery palpable.
As Kenn E. Head plays Willie, the junior waiter with a mixture of wishfulness and stubbornness, we see how he represents those who are repressed, who, in their turn, mistreat others. When his girlfriend doesn’t get dance steps right, he hits her. With a jutting chin and sullen expression, his perfect world resides in gliding effortlessly around the dance floor, the place where he can leave behind the realities of segregation and having to choose between bus fare home or a tune on the jukebox. His is the brooding presence in the background, waiting for the day when his turn will come.
Cast as one of the “boys,” Cedric Young portrays the only man, indeed adult, including those of the unseen parents. Although not educated beyond the school lessons he learned alongside Hally, Sam has a keen mind and challenges the boy to choose a “man of magnitude,” about whom to write. One might suppose that Hally could pick Sam himself, but there are none so blind as those who will not see. Thus, Hally mocks him for selecting Abraham Lincoln. “Don’t get sentimental. You’ve never been a slave.”
Cedric Young brings the stature of a dignified presence to the part of Sam, who holds out forgiveness to Hally for his ill treatment. Mr. Young displays the understanding of a parent towards a wounded child at the decisive moment his relationship with Hally changes forever.
These characters required actors courageous enough to bare the ugliness of personal and institutionalized behavior. As they maneuvered through the steps required by the system separating the races, while inexorably intertwining them in day-to-day business, they showed how difficult and finally impossible it was to maintain that “dance.”
Cedric Youn, Nick Ferrin and Kenn E. Head in "MASTER HAROLD" ...and the boys
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
Nick Ferrin and Cedric Young in "MASTER HAROLD" ...and the boys
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
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