Harold.” Sam, who had always called his friend by the familiar name “Hally,” warns that if he calls him “Master Harold” once, he will do so forever, and their friendship will be broken. After Hally jokes about an African’s backside not being “fair,” Sam drops his pants and shows the boy the truth—that his rear is just as dark as his face. Hally attempts to assert his racial superiority by spitting on Sam. The man is infuriated and initially wants to hit the boy, but as Hally’s intellectual superior, he controls his emotions and merely calls him “Master Harold.” Signaling the end of their friendship, these words are more condemning than physical violence. Hally tries feebly to get out of the situation, but Sam takes control and guides their relationship to a fresh start. Hally learns that being a man means not always resorting to hatred and violence. The play ends with the jukebox playing Sarah Vaughan singing “Little man you’re crying . . . Little man you’ve had a busy day.”

“MASTER HAROLD” . . . and the Boys opens on the set where the entire play takes place, a tea room in the South African city of Port Elizabeth in 1950. The tables and chairs have been stacked on one side; the room also contains a few shabby plants and a serving counter with stale cakes and a modest display of candy, cigarettes, and soda. A telephone and an old jukebox are arrayed between advertising placards and a crudely lettered blackboard with the prices of some basic items. Sam is sitting at a table, leafing through a comic book, while Willie is mopping the floor and singing up-tempo blues. Pausing in his work, Willie tries a few dance steps with the mop as his partner. He is trying to perfect his dancing style for an important ballroom dance contest to be held soon. Sam is coaching and encouraging him.

It is clear that there is not much work to do and that their lives are not particularly eventful. Willie is enthusiastic and eager but uneducated and not at all reflective. Sam is more composed and thoughtful but also clearly deprived of any formal educational experience. Their lives do not extend beyond the local community and the tea room. From their banter, it is evident that they are good friends.

As Sam demonstrates a dance step, exhibiting a surprising proficiency, Hally arrives, having just returned from school. Clearly, he has a very friendly relationship with the two men. The three discuss Hally’s troubled relationship with his crippled father. The extent of the boy’s relationship with Sam and Willie is developed through reminiscences ranging back to Hally’s first tentative entrance into the “boys’” quarters before he was ten years old. Their recollections are so vivid that they seem to coexist with the present. The audience begins to realize that Sam is a kind of surrogate father for Hally, the true source of his education and moral guidance, while Willie is like an amiable older brother. The delight that Hally and Sam share in exploring major ethical questions indicates their mutual delight in mental agility and shows their respect and deep affection for each other. They seem to be wryly aware of the incongruity of this comaraderie between a comic-book-reading black man and a literate, articulate white boy.

Although the play is one continuous act without intermission, the first section concludes with a dialogue in which Sam comments on Hally’s story of a day when Sam designed and built a kite and then flew it successfully in spite of the boy’s doubts and initial embarrassment about the project.

The mood of nostalgia is abruptly altered when Hally receives a telephone call from the hospital where his father periodically goes for treatment. Hally is troubled by his father’s drinking, sympathetic about his handicap, and saddened by his own inability to understand or help. His declaration that “the principle of perpetual disappointment” rules the universe contrasts sharply with the kite story and introduces an undercurrent of anxiety. Visibly upset by the conversation, Hally retreats to do his homework.

Sam and Willie begin to joke about the dance contest, and Hally, not engaged by his assignment to write about a historical ceremony, is drawn back into their conversation. Sam explains to Hally how the dance contest is a symbol of living beauty that expresses the best of human nature through action. Hally begins to appreciate the fact that black South African culture is neither primitive nor empty; the discussion also reveals how subtle and intelligent Sam actually is. Hally responds with characteristic enthusiasm and begins to see the possibility of basing his homework assignment on a journalistic description of the contest, thus joining both of his worlds. At the height of their excitement at the vision of “a world without collisions,” however, the telephone, a harbinger of unrest, intrudes once again.

The third section of the play begins with Hally’s side of a long conversation with his mother and then his father. This marks a dramatic turning point, as his father’s imminent arrival brings Hally’s conflicting feelings of affection and uncertainty to the surface. Sam tries to offer some comfort and counsel, but the problem is too deep-rooted for his wisdom and good nature. Hally takes out his anger, fear, and frustration on Sam, baiting him until Sam is driven to respond. Resorting to the tactic of adopting a bogus position of superiority to cover up his feeling of inadequacy, Hally begins to order Sam around, demanding to be called “Master Harold.” Sam warns him of the consequences—“I’ll never call you anything else again”— but this threat does not deter Hally, driven now by shame and a kind of psychological momentum. Hally tells one of his father’s terrible jokes, involving a pun on the color connotations of the word “fair,” and Sam, now pushed too far at last, drops his trousers as a comment on the joke’s stupid central image. Hally, in desperation and confusion, spits in Sam’s face.

The long-suppressed anger in Sam and Willie surges beyond Sam’s desire to control it, and in his own pain and disappointment, he asks Willie, “Should I hit him?” The tension is riveting. Willie, in a momentary reversal, speaks with the maturity normally associated with Sam, “He’s a little boy, Boet Sam. Little white boy. Long trousers now, but he’s still little boy.” The mood softens from anger into sadness and resignation as Sam ruefully tries to accept his failure to build bridges with Hally. The boy seems helpless, and Sam generously does not abandon him. Admitting that he needs help too, he asks Hally, “Should we try again?” Too confused to respond, Hally walks off the stage. Willie realizes that Sam needs his help now, and as the play concludes, in a gesture of brotherhood, he promises Sam that he will control his temper and work on his dancing. The play closes with Willie putting his carfare into the jukebox, so that the last voice one hears is Sarah Vaughan’s, singing a consoling blues tune while Sam and Willie dance together. “You lead. I follow,” Willie suggests.

*Port Elizabeth

*Port Elizabeth. City on the southern coast of South Africa. A strictly segregated city at the time of the play, Port Elizabeth is inhabited only by white families like the family of seventeen-year-old South African boy Harold (Hally), by a small merchant class of Indian origin, and by the black servants of these groups. Most black workers like Willie, who is employed in the tearoom owned by Hally’s parents, might have jobs in Port Elizabeth, but they come into the city by bus from black townships and neighborhoods including New Brighton, Kingwilliamstown, and the other localities represented in Willie’s blacks-only dance competition. Hally has lived so long as one of the privileged whites in segregated areas that he is usually unaware that others’ movements are more restricted than his own. Until Sam tells him near the end of the play, he goes for years without realizing that the reason Sam did not stay on the park bench and fly the kite with Hally is that the bench was restricted to whites only.

St. George’s Park tearoom

St. George’s Park tearoom. Shop owned by Hally’s mother. Like most South African businesses in white areas, the owners and customers are white, but the employees are black. The play takes place in the tearoom, where Hally enjoys the power and privilege of being the owner’s son, lording his position over the employees. The dynamic added by the tearoom itself allows the play to resonate beyond the themes of history and race.

Athol Fugard is primarily concerned with the interaction of black and white culture in “MASTER HAROLD” . . . and the Boys. His dramatic devices draw the audience into the character and changing moods of the three people on stage, in a gradual widening and deepening that moves toward the heart of their beliefs and fears. He uses only one basic set, but each feature of the set is used to make an important point. The telephone is a link to the always troubling and sometimes threatening outside world, and when it rings, a major change in emphasis is signaled. The chairs and tables are arranged to no particular purpose, to stress the emptiness of Sam and Willie’s work. The jukebox remains inert until the end, when its music underscores the quiet goodness of the black men.

The world of the play, like the lives of the characters, is built essentially through language, for the imagination is the only faculty on which the characters can rely to brighten their bleak prospects. Most of the dramatic moments of the play occur through sudden revelations that carry the characters to new levels of understanding. In the early stages of the play, Sam and Willie are preparing for the dance contest, all easy banter and old jokes. They are relaxed and following familiar patterns of conversation. When Hally arrives, the mood changes rapidly, as Fugard forces the characters into a new awareness of themselves through the introduction of alternate viewpoints. Ideas build in an associative progression as Sam and Hally trade insights on political leaders and theoreticians until they both pause, glowing with delight at the agility of their argument. This plateau leads to another ascent into perception, as Hally and the men begin to reminisce about the early stages of their relationship. The re-creation of their joined history combines moments of enthusiasm and illumination with a reflective sense of the meaning of each remembered occasion. In the kite-flying scene and the description of the forthcoming dance contest, the tea room is transformed into a realm of motion and color through Fugard’s skillful use of ricocheting dialogue. After each of these efforts reaches a peak, a shift in focus reduces the intensity, but the energy is retained in reserve, so that the structure of the play is a series of leaps to a higher level of understanding.

In the most theatrical moment of the play, language becomes both an energizing agent and a pivot to establish the play’s ultimate conflict. The confrontation that arises between Hally and Sam is actually an expression of the conflict within Hally: between his corrupt legacy and his real education in humane values. Beginning in verbal combat, the confrontation moves toward a physical gesture so out of character that the world of the play stops completely, poised between disintegration and a mysterious future. The crucial nature of the exchange between Sam and Hally is underscored by the fact that they are using their wit counter to their real inclinations, exchanging insults and attacking what they had previously treasured. The sickness within South African society, the immoral system of Apartheid, explodes in a monstrous, destructive form through the words Sam and Hally use. The subconscious demon each has tried to suppress escapes and must be dealt with. The coarsening of the language shapes the mood of dangerous anger, and Hally’s desperate, anguished physical attack on Sam produces the most intensely felt moment of stillness in the play, the heart of darkness seen in angry light. It seems as if the energy of the imagination has been drained and lost. Yet between the terrible stillness that threatens to engulf the stage and the motion of life that has claimed it previously, the bridging power of Fugard’s language is employed for a last time to reconnect the dual tendencies of the South African psyche.

Separate and Unequal In the mid-twentieth century, the country of South Africa was dominated by the policy of apartheid, a separation and segregation based on race. Strict policies prohibited and governed such issues as intermarriage, land ownership, and use of public facilities. In "Master Harold" ... and the Boys, Sam illustrates the division quite clearly: "I couldn't sit down there and stay with you," referring to a "Whites Only" bench upon which Hally sat. The laws deliberately set out to humiliate people of color, even to the point of determining who could sit on a particular bench Errol Durbach explained the psychopathology of apartheid in Modern Drama: "It is not that racial prejudice is legislated in South Africa. It insinuates itself into every social sphere of existence, until the very language of ordinary human discourse begins to reflect the policy that makes black men subservient to the power exercised by white children."

Fugard's Underground Theater Many of Fugard's early plays were performed for small private audiences rather than in public theaters, apartheid laws forbade white actors appearing on stage with black actors In the 1960s, Fugard helped to start the Serpent Players, an all-black theater group made up of residents of New Brighton, the black township of Fugard's hometown of Port Elizabeth. Despite frequent harassment from the police, the Serpent Players continued to perform, and Fugard's involvement with the group did much to establish black South African theater.

In Fugard's first major theatrical success, The Blood Knot, Fugard appeared as a light-skinned nonwhite half brother, a commentary on a individual's search for freedom in a country that denied such independence. In this play, Fugard dramatized the ambivalence and racial hatred that infected many South African relationships, perverting the "blood knot," or common bond of humanity Despite voicing the concerns of the country's black majority, Fugard's drama was considered rebellious by the white ruling minority Because it so implicitly criticized the way of life for many Afrikaners, his work was often banned or heavily censored. It was not until "Master Harold" . and the Boys, which had its debut outside of South Africa, that the rest of the world became aware of Fugard's work With endorsements from critics and audiences in New York and London, "Master Harold's" message was being heard, despite a South African ruling banning performance or publication of the play.

The End of Apartheid The culture of racism that was promoted by apartheid continued virtually unchecked throughout the 1950s and well into the next three decades. By 1982, apartheid was recognized in much of the free world as a dire injustice against humanity. Activist organizations such as Amnesty International fought for the eradication of such an inherently racist society, going to great lengths to publicize South Africa's criminal treatment of its black majority. Along with the human rights violations of communist China, South Africa's policies were considered among the gravest.

Blacks who spoke out against the government's policies were routinely arrested and imprisoned. The most famous activist/prisoner in the South African penal system was Nelson Mandela, whose public campaigns for equality resulted hi a sentence of life imprisonment. At the time of "Master Harold's" first production in 1982, Mandela was one of the best-known political prisoners in the world. Despite the efforts of the South African government, Mandela's message was being heard across continents. In 1987, while still a prisoner, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1990, then president F. W. de Klerk ordered Mandela's release, after twenty-seven years of incarceration. Soon after, de Klerk dissolved the system of apartheid and agreed to open elections that would allow blacks to both run for office and freely vote. In 1991, Mandela was elected the president of South Africa and his party, the African National Congress, took control of the government. After decades of subordination, South Africa's black majority finally had an equal voice in their country.

Setting"Master Harold''... and the Boys is a drama set in the St. George's Tea Room on a wet and windy afternoon. The year is 1950 and the location is Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The entire play takes place in the restaurant. While it is a small, enclosed space, the tea room serves as a microcosm of South African society at large. The attitudes and situations that are displayed in the restaurant are variations on what occurred on a daily basis under the system of apartheid.

Realism"Master Harold"... and the Boys subscribes to the school of realism in that the actions and dialogue of the three characters are very much as they would be in real life This is not surprising given that the play is based on events from Fugard's own life. Like his titular character, the playwright had the nickname Hally as well as an alcoholic father of whom he was greatly ashamed. Fugard found a surrogate father in a black man who worked at his parents' cafe, a relationship much like the one between Hally and Sam. The play also enacts a historical reality in its portrayal of the actions and attitudes of South Africa at the height of apartheid.

Yet realism in literature is not a mere transcription of actual events; it seeks to use reality as a kind of mirror in which the audience can see themselves. Fugard uses realistic events and settings to strike chords of recognition in his audience. The play may be based on a specific event from his own childhood, but the themes of societal prejudice are universal By portraying the severe emotional toll that is exacted when inequality is a fundamental concept in society, the playwright hopes to make his viewers aware and hopefully prevent future instances of injustice. The play is not about the history of apartheid politics but more specifically a family history that illustrates the evils of such a prejudiced system.

Symbolism Two images play prominent roles in this drama--the kite and dancing. Made out of tomato-box slats, brown paper, discarded socks, and glue, the kite represents the soaring hopes for equality between the races and the triumph of human love over prejudice and hatred Sam made the kite for Hally to lift the boy's spirits. A past incident is recalled in which Hally's father had become so drunk at a local bar that he had soiled himself. Because the mother was not at home, Hally had to go to the bar and ask permission for Sam to enter in order to take his father home. The event greatly disturbed and depressed the boy. Sam tells Hally he made the kite because he "wanted [him] to look up, be proud of something, of [himself]." At the end of the play, after Hally has spit in his face, Sam, in a final attempt at reconciliation, offers Hally the opportunity to "fly another kite." "You can't fly kites on rainy days," says Hally. This exchange illustrates the two characters' personalities and is also reflective of South African culture at large. Sam, like many South Africans, wishes to reconcile, put the past behind him, and work towards a better future. Hally, also like many of his countrymen, realizes what he has done is wrong yet is too programmed to attempt change.

Dancing assumes the role as metaphor for life in the play. From the tabulations of Willie and his partner to Willie and Sam's poignant dance that concludes the play, dancing helps the characters make sense of a world that seems out of control. Describing his idea of a perfect ballroom—metaphorically an ideal world—Sam tells Hally, "There are no collisions out there... Nobody trips or stumbles or bumps into anybody else... like being in a dream about a world in which accidents don't happen."

1950s: In South Africa, the system of apartheid legislates the separation of the races. Black people are forced to live in designated areas and may only use designated public facilities.

1980s: The world condemns the policy of apartheid. Many people across the globe protest the involvement of businesses in South Africa and demonstrate for divestiture of investments in that country.

Today: The government of South Africa has officially renounced the policy of apartheid and has elected a black leader, Nelson Mandela.

1950s: In America, pre-World War II race restrictions (Jim Crow laws) are discarded. Black people assert their civil rights with marches, demonstrations, sit-down strikes, and boycotts. The Supreme Court strikes down the doctrine of "separate but equal" in the landmark Brown v. the Board of Education decision. In the ensuing decade, the Civil Rights Movement will reach a fever pitch, creating sweeping legislation to promote equality among races.

1980s: While race relations in the U.S. have improved since the 1950s and 1960s, there is still considerable inequality to be addressed. These disparities are trivial compared with the plight of South African blacks, however. Expanding public knowledge of apartheid renews many Americans' commitment to racial harmony and equality in their own country.

Today: The U.S. has instituted policies that forbid discrimination based on race or color in the areas of employment, housing, and access to government services. Despite the obvious benefits of such policies, many conservative politicians seek to eradicate such practices as Affirmative Action, claiming that it denies qualified whites equal opportunity.

Sources Brustein, Robert, Review of "Master Harold" in the New Republic, Vol 186, No 25, June 23, 1982, pp. 30-31.

Colleran, Jeanne, Modern Drama, Vol. XXXTTI, no. 1, March, 1990, pp. 82-92.

Crow, Brian, "Master Harold . and the Boys" in International Dictionary of Theatre, Vol 1- Plays, edited by Mark Hawkins-Dady, St James Press, 1992.

Durbach, Enrol, "'Master Harold' . .and the Boys Athol Fugard and the Psychopathology of Apartheid" in Modern Drama, Vol. XXX, no. 4, December 1987, pp 505-13.

Gray, Stephen New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. VI, no. 21, February, 1990, pp 25-30.

Further Reading Brians, Paul "Athol Fugard. 'Master Harold' , and the Boys" at http//www.wsuedu'8080/~bnans/anglophone/fugard.html. A website containing notes to the Penguin Plays edition of "Master Harold" and the Boys (1984); organized by page number.

Mallaby, Sebastian After Apartheid. The Future of South Africa, Times Books, 1992. Polarized by decades of apartheid, black and white South Africans now face the challenges of racial coexistence and economic growth in a new, multiracial nation This incisive examination of the radical consequences of apartheid's demise offers a penetrating look at South Africa on the brink of racial and historic change.

"Underdog's South African Independent Film Site'' at http //www safilm.org.za/. A home page with links to Film Festivals, Film Schools, Showdata's SA Film Site, and other independent South African media artists.

Walder, Dennis. Athol Fugard, Macmillan, 1984. Walder is a South African educator and critic His book offers analysis of Fugard's career up through 1984 and includes considerable discussion of "Master Harold."