STAGE REVIEW : A Sadness in the Soul : Theater: Athol Fugard’s ‘My Children! My Africa!’ shows South African racial conflict through debating students.

Athol Fugard has sometimes been referred to as the Samuel Beckett of South Africa--not, heaven knows, because he is sparing with words. Quite the reverse. Rather because, like the late Irish playwright, he understands, in some deep visceral part of his conflicted self, the tragedy of humankind.

He did not have to look far. The stage was set for him from birth: A white man born in a predominantly black country, where the caldron of racial repression was about to boil over; a white man, moreover, outraged by injustice and torn by his helplessness in the face of its daily manifestations.

With this set of givens, it was inevitable, perhaps, that Fugard, who gave us such early jolts as “The Blood Knot,” “Boesman and Lena,” “ ‘Master Harold’ . . . and the Boys” would, sooner or later, write a play like “My Children! My Africa!,” which opened Sunday at the La Jolla Playhouse. Later more likely than sooner, because it is a work of emotional complexity and philosophical argument that could only have erupted from a playwright at a certain stage of maturity in both his life and work.

The plot takes two bright high school students from opposite ends of the South African spectrum with, in common, intelligence and a taste for scholarship. Thami (Sterling Macer Jr.) is a black boy from the impoverished “location” (township), and Isabel (Nancy Travis) is a well-to-do white girl from the better part of this small eastern Cape Karroo town. They are brought together in a debate by Thami’s dedicated black teacher, Mr. M (Brock Peters).

The success of this brief encounter across the great racial divide emboldens Mr. M to team these two students in another contest--this time, on the same side of the argument. It’s a daring idea that excites the inspired old man and the eager Isabel but generates inarticulate resistance in Thami.

Fugard, who also directed his play, has set this up so that we begin to see these children not only as the division of South Africa itself but as the two halves of the teacher’s tortured soul: the African in him who yearns for parity and freedom--and the scholar in him who reveres the essentially white legacy of education, believing passionately in its power.

Weighing the stone somebody tossed through the schoolhouse window in one hand and a dictionary in the other, Mr. M makes an ardent case for the dictionary, imploring Thami to seize the penetrating force of the word over the blunted stone.

But Thami and his fellow students are not listening. Their patience has run out. These are young men who see the pleading Mr. M as a superannuated so-called “white black,” whose ideas won’t wash any more. The conflict between man and boys--embodied in this one boy--precipitates disaster, while Isabel, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy awash with tears, tries to make sense of it all.

Extraordinarily, she does. The torrent of words that has gushed and spewed before, some of it simply as too many words (this is a very verbal play) but most of it with tremendous eloquence, is a preamble to a stunning close.

The impotent Isabel and alienated Thami sort out their contradictory emotions in a confrontation that neither oversimplifies the issues nor backs away from the abundant sorrow and complexity of its resolution. It puts Fugard in first rank as a playwright.

He is supported here by three superb performances. Peters is at once a man in ruins and pillar of tragedy as the upstanding teacher who cannot overcome the turning tide, showing us both aspects of Mr. M: the morality and anachronism of his deeply felt beliefs.

Macer gives Thami the strength, seriousness and sweetness of a boy caught in a maelstrom and struggling with an illogical world. And Nancy Travis exemplifies the rage and sadness of enlightenment stumped by the senselessness of violence. All three, sooner or later, burn a hole in one’s consciousness.

Dennis Parichy’s lights provide a moody scheme, but, in every other respect, simplicity wisely rules Fugard’s production. Douglas Stein and Susan Hilferty have designed a basic platform severed by a curtain that the actors pull at will.

But, in the end, it’s all about the writing. In “My Children! My Africa!” Fugard achieves what every dramatist aspires to, a profoundly regionalized vision that illuminates the universal.

At the Mandell Weiss Theatre, UCSD campus, La Jolla Village Drive and Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla, Tuesdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., with matinees Saturdays and Sundays at 2. Ends Sept. 30. $20-$26; (619) 534-3960.

‘MY CHILDREN! MY AFRICA!’

The Southern California premiere of a play written and directed by Athol Fugard. Associate director Susan Hilferty. Set Douglas Stein and Hilferty. Lighting Dennis Parichy. Costumes Hilferty. Sound James LeBrecht. Stage manager Sandra Lea Williams. Assistant stage manager Debbie Falb. Vocal coach Susan Leigh. Cast Brock Peters, Nancy Travis, Sterling Macer Jr.