'Master Harold ... and the Boys' recalls how it felt to live under apartheid

The audience gasps, holding its breath. It waits for the white schoolboy in uniform, Hally, to do the right thing by Sam, the elder black "servant" who has provided him with comfort and friendship throughout his distressed childhood. Sam's ballroom-dancing friend, Willy, can barely look at them. But the tension that this trio of award-winning actors creates on stage is so powerful that nobody else can look away.

"You don't want to do this," Sam has told Hally. When the boy does not listen, it's a visceral blow to everyone in the intimate space of the Fugard Theatre's Fugard Studio. They wait, unsure how this will end.

Younger South Africans who have wondered what apartheid was like - even those who have not - can find out for themselves if they happen to be in Cape Town for the 10th anniversary of the Fugard Theatre this month.

Master Harold ... and the Boys immerses the audience in how it felt to live under apartheid and, like the most compelling of Athol Fugard's masterpieces, exposes the pain entrenched by apartheid brutality and discrimination. A legacy that lives on generations after the laws were lifted.

"We are doing a historic play through a modern lens," says the Fugard's artistic director, Greg Karvellas.

"It is still a relevant play about race relations and we are still living with the trauma of apartheid. We are shining a light on the darker corners of what it means to be human."

Neither the Fugard, Karvellas nor the cast of the play have ever flinched from probing the sharp edges of (in)humanity or the celebratory moments that bring people together.

Karvellas directed both Shakespeare in Love at the Fugard in 2017 - a comedy whose "raw energy" he enjoys - and last year's Statements After An Arrest Under The Immorality Act, another Fugard classic based on the true story of a white librarian and black headmaster who are jailed for having a relationship deemed illegal under apartheid laws.

Desmond Dube as Sam, Hally's wise, kite-building mentor in Master Harold, also starred in the Fugard's production of the multi-award-winning musical, King Kong, and has won Fleur du Cap and Naledi theatre awards.

Kai Luke Brummer, who played the lead in the internationally acclaimed 2019 film, Moffie, is perfectly cast as Hally, a character who is both adrift and angry.

Siya Mayola, who plays the role of Willy, is famous for his roles in TV series like Amaza - a coming-of-age youth drama series. He doesn't put a foot wrong in his performance as the ballroom-dancing cleaner in the Port Elizabeth tearoom in which Master Harold is set in 1950.

The oppressive atmosphere of a wet afternoon in the tearoom - where Sam and Willy don't have enough coins to play the jukebox so as to practise their quickstep - is achieved by Fiesta Award nominee for set and lighting design, Wolf Britz.

The shifts in mood are lightning fast on stage, where Sam and Willy explore their dreams of winning a silver cup at the upcoming ballroom-dancing competition and Sam and Hally debate what beauty and greatness mean.

Hally remembers with affection his childhood days spent in the cramped servants' quarters he would flee to to escape his crippled, alcoholic father. His obliviousness to Sam's kindness and his condescending attitude to the adults who sacrificed their off-duty hours and privacy for him is shattering to watch.

As Sam imagines "a world without collisions" - the world he experiences on the ballroom floor - Hally spins out of control.

Karvellas says they took extra care in casting their flagship birthday production, which will also launch the Fugard's 2020 season. "I had Des and Kai in mind ... and for Willy we hunted around to get the right dynamic."

Watching the actors rehearse around the corner from the Fugard Theatre in a bright space where Karvellas gets up on occasion to suggest a movement or modify a tone, it's obvious he found the winning combination.

Theatre is an inextricable part of the life of
37-year-old Karvellas, who attended the National School of the Arts, then UCT drama school before going straight into stage management after graduation.

Karvellas and friend, writer Louis Viljoen, have co-produced successful shows such as the hit play, Champ, about a group of actors scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The play was staged at the Fugard and National Arts Festival and the Edinburgh Festival in 2013. Karvellas also toured South Africa, London and New York as associate director of A Human Being Died That Night, psychologistPumla Gobodo-Madikizela's account of her interviews with state-sanctioned mass murderer Eugene De Kock.

Karvellas says Master Harold ... and the Boys is the favourite Fugard play of Eric Abraham, the founding producer of the theatre. The themes Fugard explores in his plays include injustice, truth, humanity and how the apartheid system tore people apart. He also wrote the short story, Tsotsi, which was turned in 2005 into an Oscar-winning film of the same name.

Master Harold ... and the Boys, which premiered on the Fugard Theatre's birthday on February 12, is a fine tribute to one of South Africa's finest playwrights.

To book, visit thefugard.com.