For those who make it a career, the theatre can be a place of magic, wonder, heartbreak, adventure, and above all, a home all its own as Athol Fugard shows in the New York premiere of his autobiographical work Exits and Entrances.
Set in South Africa in 1956 and 1961, the story deals with the relationship between a young playwright (William Dennis Hurley) and acclaimed South African actor Andre Huguenet (Morlan Higgins). The play is based on Fugard's own relationship with Huguenet who Fugard calls his "first mentor in the world of the theatre."
The Playwright (as the character is called) is newly married and bursting with youthful idealism while Andre, a man whose talent is beyond question, has found it harder and harder to get work in the field he loves. There is an obvious bond between the two as Andre sees in the young man echoes of himself long ago.
Fugard's text is both a love letter and lesson about theatre—helped in no small part by Stephen Sachs' able direction. At one point, the Playwright asks Andre if he's sorry he's never had a real home, to which Andrew replies that the theatre is his home, the one place where he feels truly alive and which gives him all the comfort he needs.
Higgins is brilliant as the aging actor, playing the role with a combination humor, pathos, and fatalism. There is also more than a little bitterness present.
Andre once felt, as the Playwright does now, that theatre can change the world; yet at their final meeting, knowing he is at the end of his career with so many dreams unfulfilled, Andre criticizes the young man for writing a play about the deplorable conditions in South Africa, saying the country isn't interested in that sort of thing.
It's here Hurley (adequate in a pretty much pedestrian role) gets a chance to be more than a sounding board as his character fiercely defends his work. Through his belief in the words he has written, the young man takes his first steps to joining the world of the theatre, a world Andrew welcomes him into with a sort of joyful resignation.
Exits and Entrances
Presented by Primary Stages
59E59 Theatres
59 E. 59 Street
212-279-4200 or www.ticketcentral.com
Closing: April 29, 2007
Judd Hollander is the New York correspondent for the London publication THE STAGE.
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