Gordon Edelstein (Roundabout's 2010 production of The Glass Menagerie) directs the play by 2011 Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award winner Fugard, the major playwright of South Africa, known for Master Harold…and the Boys (which Roundabout produced a revival of in 2003), Blood Knot, My Children! My Africa!, Exits and Entrances, The Island, Boesman and Lena and more. Fugard, an actor, playwright and director, turns 80 in 2012 and is the current resident playwright of Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company season.
The Road to Mecca plays the American Airlines Theatre on West 42nd Street. It officially opens Jan. 17, 2012, for a limited run through March 4, 2012.
Here's how Roundabout Theatre Company bills The Road to Mecca: "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 (Tony Award winner Rosemary Harris) has become depressed and appears increasingly unable to care for herself. Pastor Marius Byleveld (Tony Award winner Jim Dale), 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."
Fugard directed the world-premiere production of The Road to Mecca at the National Theatre in London, and later at the Promenade Theatre Off-Broadway. He played the role of Marius Byleveld in both productions. The play won the 1988 Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play. The Road to Mecca's Helen is based on the career of Helen Elizabeth Martins, who was born in 1897 in the Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda in the Eastern Cape. She created "The Owl House," now a national monument, starting the obsessive project in the 1940s. Martins used cement, glass and wire to decorate the interior of her home and later built sculptures in her garden. Almost all the walls of the interior of the house were covered in decorative and colorful crushed glass, according to Roundabout notes. Martins died in 1976; she took her own life.
The design team includes Michael Yeargan (sets), frequent Fugard collaborator Susan Hilferty (costumes) and John Gromada (original music and sound design).
Roundabout's production of The Road to Mecca is by special arrangement with Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company, which is devoting its 2012 season to the works of Fugard. Signature will christen its new home, Signature Center, with Fugard as its inaugural "Residency One" playwright. Residency One is Signature's core one-year playwright-in-residence program that produces a series of plays from the body of work of one accomplished writer. Read Playbill magazine's A Life in the Theatre profile of Fugard.
For tickets and information, visit www.roundabouttheatre.org or call Roundabout Ticket Services (212) 719-1300.
