"Master Harold"...and the Boys

“Master Harold”…and the Boys, set in 1950, is South African playwright Athol Fugard’s most autobiographical play. It’s a fitting place for Profile Theatre, which devotes an entire year to a single playwright, to begin the season: It introduces Fugard as a writer of political but not polemical works that probe apartheid-era prejudice and inequality in his home country. This quietly provocative production takes place on a rainy day in a quaint tea room in Port Elizabeth, where the shop’s two black employees, Sam and Willie, have been practicing their ballroom steps. The master of the play’s title is 17-year-old Hally, the son of the tea shop’s owners, who joins Sam and Willie for the afternoon. A privileged white boy tucked into a prep school blazer and tie, Hally is a stand-in for Fugard. It’s an unforgiving portrayal—Hally can be annoying, smug and mean. Sam Benedict plays him as an impetuous and angry boy, who puffs up his chest in an attempt to be a man but (perhaps unwillingly) just parrots the ruthless racism of his alcoholic father. As Sam, Bobby Bermea gives a stirring and balanced performance: As much as Hally’s behavior pains and angers him, he also understands the boy’s confused hypocrisy. Fugard is a bit didactic, and the plot’s metaphors perhaps too tidy, but director Jane Unger (who stepped down as Profile’s artistic director last season) allows the production to burble gently—all the way through its cruelly explosive turns and to its potent conclusion.

Where: Theater! Theatre!
Phone: 242-0080
Address: 3430 SE Belmont St.
Website: profiletheatre.org