Master Harold and The Boys at The Lyttleton

Master Harold and the Boys, currently playing at The Lyttleton, is set in a Port Elizabeth tea-room in 1950, when apartheid was at its zenith.  The tea-room is owned by the teenage Hally’s mother, while Sam and Willie are the two “boys” who work there.  It’s a rainy afternoon and the two black men practice their steps for the finals of a ballroom dancing championship.  We’re introduced to Hally when he arrives at the tea-room from school.  The three of them initially chat and joke, but we soon realise this is an uneasy friendship with Hally frequently adopting a condescending attitude to the two employees.  Then slowly but surely the schoolboy’s patronising builds to a pitch, whereupon Hally turns into Master Harold.

It’s no easy task for a young actor to change from intermittent condescension to downright obnoxiousness and Anson Boon as Hally equips himself well. The boy’s youthfulness is highlighted by Boon’s squeaky, rather irritating voice and petulant manner.  This ensures that the moment when he metamorphosises into Master Harold and we’re privy to the final insult of which Fugard is particularly ashamed, is especially shocking. 

One of the most striking aspects of the play is the patience shown to Hally by both Sam (Lucien Msamati) and Willie (Hammed Animashaun).  Msamati makes for a perfect Sam.  Restrained and dignified in both manner and movement - he initially glides around the stage to the ballroom manner born – his eventual anger at Hally is devastating.

As Willie, Hammed Animashaun is also perfect.  A huge presence when needed, his silences also pack a big punch and he some-how manages to blend into the background when the older man is chatting with his young friend.  A big friendly giant one assumes, except that he admits to beating his woman when she messes up the dancing.  It seems that in South Africa some things never change!

The one thing the two boys have in common is their love for ballroom dancing, or more specifically the upcoming championship.  Sam uses it as a metaphor for world harmony and says at one point that ‘ballroom dancers don’t bump into one another because everyone’s doing the right steps.  If everyone thought about love and acceptance, there wouldn’t be any bumping’.

Rajha Shakiry has designed the perfect tea-room set with atmospheric rain pouring down onto the glass roof and Director Roy Alexander Weise and Choreographer Shelley Maxwell have brought out the best from this excellent trio.  The whole auditorium stood at the end and quite rightly too.