Posted by Stuart Hyde, January 26, 2009:
Saturday afternoon I went to the Marin Theatre Company to see a performance of “My Children, My Africa.”
I arrived, expecting to see a play, on a stage, in a comfortable theatre.
Instead of seeing a play, I had an experience.
Instead of a theatre with actors, I was transported to a Black classroom in South Africa.
Soon after the first lines were spoken, I was in a the presence, not of actors, but of three South Africans, Mr. M. the teacher, his pupil Thami, and Isabel, a white student who’d come to compete in a debate.
During the playing out of the hopes, fears, and disappointments of three individuals — people I came to care for very deeply — I was drawn into the agony of a nation deeply conflicted, struggling to find a way out of a hole which isabel’s white ancestors had dug. I became intensely involved, and as the action moved forward, I experienced empathetic suffering, while being gradually enlightened.
When I left the theatre, I took with me Mr. M., Thami, and Isabel and, through them, I carried away the agony of two races, one trapped in lives of degradation, poverty, and hopelessness, the other trapped in lives of superficial and unjustified feelings of superiority.
I thank those who made this possible. Please let them know.
