Aloe, a kind of succulent plant, can thrive almost anywhere. In Athol Fugard’s rarely revived play, which dates from 1978, patient liberal Piet keeps several aloes in tins in his backyard, and they’re an ambiguous image — implying stubborn roots and survival, yet also the unattractive forms that resilience can take.
Piet and his wife Gladys have decided to throw a small party for their friend Steve, a mixed-race activist who has just been released from prison and is moving to England. By contrast, Piet, despite failures in farming and politics, is determined (and able) to stay where he is, and Dawid Minnaar captures his vigilant stoicism.
A recent breakdown has caused Gladys to spend time in a clinic, and she’s disconnected from her environment, commenting that “it’s hard sometimes to believe there is a world out there full of other people”. Her diaries used to be a means of unpacking her intimate thoughts, but they were confiscated in a police raid. It’s a detail she recalls with anguish, and Janine Ulfane’s best moments come when suggesting Gladys’s anxiety and fragility.
When Steve at last turns up, the mood changes. Though the two men boisterously share old memories, it’s clear that their bond has been damaged by the suspicion that Piet has acted as a police informer.
Fugard depicts the repressive nature of apartheid-era South Africa, and Janet Suzman’s production has a deliberately cramped atmosphere. The first half sometimes simmers and sometimes feels underpowered but David Rubin’s fiery performance as Steve intensifies questions that have been lurking since the first scene — about home, identity and belonging.
Until March 23 (01223 357851, finboroughtheatre.co.uk)
March's best theatre shows - in pictures
