KCTribune: A Lesson from Aloes

A three-character drama about life in 1960’s South Africa, A Lesson from Aloes is a complex drive though the desolate attempt to carve out an existence in the context of political resistance and shotgun oppression.

Piet Bezuidenhout (Gary Neal Johnson), an Afrikaner farm boy turned bus driver descended from Dutch settlers of the 17th century, nurses aloe plants native to South Africa in his dusty backyard. His wife, Gladys (Peggy Friesen), descended from the British who took over control of the country in the 1700’s, writes about her life in diaries, many of which were confiscated by the police, causing her to have a nervous breakdown.

Piet ends up becoming part of the resistance movement, helping people of color in the fight against Apartheid. His friend, Steve Daniels (Walter Coppage), has been jailed under the regime. Steve enters in the second act, after it has been established that Piet is the strong, good husband and Gladys the fragile, unsatisfied wife in the first act. Gladys and Steve have more in common than Gladys and her husband, sharing the discontent of living in the ruins of a non-society. Piet simply loves his homeland. He makes the observation of himself, “…it’s a small soul that resents a flower…” in reference to his longing as a boy to be strong in the world, like the flowering of the aloes in the midst of drought.

When the play started, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to relate to it. The older couple sat around their house discussing minutia in a type of boredom that is simply…not an American experience. As it becomes clear that they are really waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of the militia busting in at any moment, especially Gladys, the scenario gradually becomes more universal. Walter Coppage lights up the stage in the second act, bursting in with energy and a lovely bass voice that gradually turns more bitter as he tells of his tribulations and interrogations in jail. He and his family are off to England the next day where he feels he can start a real life.

As the air is cleared and we find out that Piet was not the informant who sent Steve to jail, the humanity of the drama comes full circle. Life is going to happen how it does, based on personal choices and external events, and the perspective one chooses in order to illuminate those events seems to be what is most important.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars