Published: 01 July 2010
by JOSH LOEB

RELIGION, race, love, gender – South African writer Athol Fugard’s 1985 play doesn’t shirk on the big themes.

Its language is simple but its power is raw thanks to tremendous performances in this production, most of all from Linda Bassett. 

Helen (Bassett) is an eccentric widow living in a pious backwater of the apartheid land. 

One of her few friends is Elsa (Sian Clifford), a young teacher from Cape Town who visits her occasionally and is in awe of the joy she finds in art. Helen sculpts “cement monstrosities” – glittering idols that  stand in her garden, her “Mecca”, like grotesque phantoms. 

Into this dreamlike world walks Marius Byleveld (James Laurenson), a pastor from the local church who thinks it’s high time Helen moved into an  old people’s home. Cue passionate arguments about Helen’s future that take in much wider issues about freedom. 

Well timed to coincide with the World Cup, this play shows that there is much more to South Africa not only than the tournament that is being played out there but than the well-known story of apartheid. By dealing with truly universal themes, rather than simply with the politics of the time in which it was written, this play succeeds in being timeless. Though it is too long at approaching three hours with the interval – and the Arcola auditorium can get stiflingly hot in summer – this production is an intellectually rewarding experience.

Until July 10

020 7503 1646