Phillyist Reviews... My Children! My Africa!

I worry that you, our readers here at Phillyist, are going to start thinking I'm too nice. I seem to like just about everything. But honestly, that doesn't make me nice. It just means that local theatres are putting up a lot of great work. My Children! My Africa! - the Wilma's current production - being no exception to that. The play, penned by South African writer Athol Fugard, really affected me in a deep and visceral way that I totally wasn't expecting. Maybe it's just the week I had. Or maybe it was just that powerful. I'm guessing a little of Column "A," a little of Column "B."

My Children! My Africa! is set in South Africa at the end of apartheid. Everything is changing—mostly for the better, but sometimes for the worse—and the world that the South Africans, black and white alike, had become comfortably complacent in is being torn apart. At the center of the play, caught in a mini-conflict of their own, are Isabel (Meghan Heimbecker), a young white student from an affluent family, Thami (Yaegel Welch)—pronounced Tommy—a black student from a Bantu (all black) high school, and Mr. M. (Glynn Turman), Tommy's teacher, who becomes sort of a mentor to Isabel as well. It ends the way it does because it has to, not because anyone in the audience, or, I believe, Fugard himself, wanted the play to end on so sad a note. Upon re-entering the lobby at the end of the play, I burst into tears. I'm used to reacting during a play, but rarely after the curtain call.

Performatively, the actors, directed by Blanka Zizka, were each stunning. Ms. Heimbecker has an incredibly expressive face and did well conveying the body language of an eighteen-year-old girl. Mr. Welch played tortured so well that I wanted to leap onto the stage and give him a hug. And Mr. Turman... Oh, Mr. Turman. His bio notes that he was in the original cast of A Raisin in the Sun, if that's any indicator. Each time he took the stage, he was completely captivating. Dignified and poised, Mr. Turman owned his scenes. I found myself wanting Mr. M to be my teacher, too.

My Children! My Africa! is performed on a simple set, designed by Matt Saunders, with impressive standalone lighting by John Stephen Hoey. The set is dominated by a large tree, symbolic of something I'm sure, but mostly just pretty. That's fine with me, because in the end, when everything comes together, it just fits there onstage. Costumes by Millie Hiibel evoked the eighties without overpowering the actors (always a risk with clothing from the decade) and allowed the actors to move freely in character, rather than to be moved by the characters they played.

If I was a Barrymore Nominator (I'm not, but I think I should be), I think I'd nominate My Children! My Africa! for just about every award I could. It's really just that good: touching and funny and sad and, most importantly, well-done.

My Children! My Africa!
Through January 7, 2007, at the Wilma
Call 215.546.7824, or visit the website for more information.

Photo by Jim Rosse, via the Wilma.