‘Valley Song’ Takes Uneven Look at Post-Apartheid World

Athol Fugard has done as much to convey the human meaning of apartheid in his native South Africa as any writer present or past. In plays as different as the heartbreaking coming-of-age tale “Master Harold . . . and the Boys” to the spare, Beckett-like “Boesman and Lena,” he has told searing stories of life in a nightmarishly unjust universe, stories from white and black and Colored perspectives alike.

The once-immovable wall of apartheid has been cleared away, at least partly because of the courage of South Africans like Fugard. And now Fugard, the premiere playwright from the old order, has written his first post-apartheid play. Perhaps it should not be surprising that it hasn’t much bite.

Having its West Coast premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse, “Valley Song” is a small coming-of-age story about a vivacious young Colored (mixed blood) woman named Veronica who dreams of being a singer.

She aches to leave her isolated home in the Karoo and follow her dream to Johannesburg, but her kindly old grandfather, a tenant farmer who is her only living relative, wants her to stay right where she is. Veronica’s mother, after all, had found nothing but misery and death in the city, and the old man cannot see that things might be different for Veronica in a new South Africa holding its first democratic elections.

The play is scheduled next year for the Mark Taper Forum in a production directed by and starring the playwright.

In La Jolla, the director is the usually inventive Lisa Peterson, who staged spirited and surprising productions of “The Triumph of Love” and “The Good Person of Setzuan” at the playhouse in recent years. Here, she supplies a plodding reading of the play, respectful and uninspired. Starting with the all-important performance of Veronica (Akosua Busia), Fugard’s symbol for a brave new South Africa with the strength and fire to change the patterns of the past, Peterson seems to have underlined the play’s flaws.

Under Peterson’s direction, Busia overstates Veronica’s young urgings, playing the role with the wide-eyed wonder of a girl far younger than 17. She seems much too aware of her character’s status as a symbol.

Her grandfather Abraam is played by the white actor Max Wright, who simultaneously takes the part of another character, named the Author, simply by removing a cap. The Author is a white playwright who is buying the land on which Abraam works, a cause of great worry for Abraam, who fears he will no longer be able to farm his beloved fruits and vegetables. Wright does not differentiate enough between the Colored and the white character, which diminishes what little tension the play offers.

The oddest aspect of “Valley Song” is the godlike stature that Fugard has given the character of the Author, who seems to know the thoughts of Abraam and yet keeps him in the dark about the impending real estate transaction that is a source of so much anxiety for the tenant farmer.

The Author also serves as a narrator, so his omniscience makes sense, but Abraam possesses no such omniscience, so the Author’s treatment of him comes off as curiously cruel.

The Author also withholds information from Veronica that would be of some value to her in her decision whether to disobey her grandfather and leave her home. The Author seems godlike because his own motivations remain sketchy and almost whimsical, in the manner of a fairy godfather from a children’s story.

Played out on Loy Arcenas’ efficient set--a platform and some screens to convey the ruddy colors of the Karoo and its wide-open spaces--”Valley Song” seems a homey and unfinished effort, as if the playwright was not yet quite ready to take on the new after so much struggle with the old.

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“Valley Song,”

La Jolla Playhouse, Mandell Weiss Center, La Jolla Village Drive and Torrey Pines Road, Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends June 23. $23-$34. (619) 550-1010, TDD/Voice (619) 550-1030. Running time: 90 minutes.

Max Wright: The Author/Abraam “Buks” Jonkers

Akosua Busia: Veronica Jonkers

A La Jolla Playhouse production. By Athol Fugard. Directed by Lisa Peterson. Sets Loy Arcenas. Costumes Norah Switzer. Lights Brian MacDevitt. Original music Didi Kriel. Dramaturgy Robert Blacker. Stage manager Cari Norton.