The Road to Mecca
Opening Night: January 17, 2012
Closing: March 4, 2012
Theater: American Airlines
Set in the region of South Africa known as the Karoo, The Road to Mecca tells the story of an elderly woman who has spent the years since her husband’s death transforming her home into an intricate and dazzling work of art. The reclusive Miss Helen (Rosemary Harris) has become depressed and appears increasingly unable to care for herself. Pastor Marius Byleveld, who embodies the village’s conservative values, is determined to get Miss Helen into an old-age home. Her friend Elsa (Carla Gugino), a young teacher from Cape Town who is deeply suspicious of the patriarchal traditions Byleveld represents, is just as determined that Miss Helen remain free.
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January 17, 2012
As Rosemary Harris says the word, “darkness” is a thing with tentacles that clutch and choke and smother. It erupts from her with a soul-deep rumble late in the first act of Athol Fugard’s “Road to Mecca,” which opened on Tuesday night at the American Airlines Theater. And once Ms. Harris has said “darkness”— or said it that way — it’s impossible to look on her character or the play in which she appears with the comfort of detachment.
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January 17, 2012
On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Athol Fugard deserves a retrospective. Which is what this distinguished South African playwright, director, actor and social activist will receive as resident playwright for the Signature Theater Company’s inaugural season in its new home — but Roundabout gets in the first tribute with this respectful revival of the scribe’s most personal drama, "The Road to Mecca." If anyone is Broadway royalty, it’s Rosemary Harris, captivating as an eccentric visionary who strikes her pious neighbors as batty, but who embodies the last flickering flame of artistic freedom in her politically embattled nation.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 17, 2012
This year is playwright Athol Fugard’s 80th birthday and the first production in New York to be mounted in the honor of this South African trailblazer is, appropriately enough, about the bravery of artists.
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January 17, 2012
Athol Fugard’s play is a long, effortful trek, but there’s a cumulative payoff in the incandescent performance of Rosemary Harris.
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January 17, 2012
Having trouble falling asleep? A pill won’t do the trick? Just try sitting through the Roundabout Theatre Company’s painfully boring revival of Athol Fugard’s 1987 drama "The Road to Mecca."
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