Photo: Costas Economides
Written when he was at the centre of the vanguard of a new generation of South African playwrights in the 1960s, this watershed work in Athol Fugard’s oeuvre, Hello and Goodbye, is not only one of his best plays, but a play that can rightfully take its place besides such powerful works as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape or Pinter’s Homecoming. A script of such emotional complexity and philosophical substance, yet always simply and powerfully expressed, it cannot possibly be done justice in this small review space.
Hester (Dorothy ann Gould), hardened and cheapened by a life of prostitution, returns home after fifteen years. However, this prodigal is unrepentant and still defines herself by her hatred for her father, her origin and the Calvinist God. She has come to claim her inheritance, her father’s work accident compensation money, she believes remains hidden somewhere in the house. She finds her reclusive brother Johnnie (Michael Maxwell) has spent his life tending to their bedridden father. As she ransacks the family home, they unpack their personal histories, the world they were born into and try to come to terms with the potentially devastating consequences of recognizing themselves.
Ultimately it is a miraculously redemptive work, a signature trait that has always distinguished Fugard from his bleaker peers.
Mark Graham’s incisive direction allows us to glimpse the children still buried within Hester and Johnnie, and at one point, subtly, even Johnnie’s brief incestuous thought. Superlative performances make this one of the best productions of the year.
