This course is offered online via the easy-to-use Zoom program.
One critic wrote that The Road to Mecca “is Fugard's wisest, most balanced and most nearly universal play.” South African playwright Athol Fugard portrays the warm friendship between an aging widow in a remote area and a young city woman, a relationship that frees the older woman, who is growing more and more eccentric, from the suffocating influence of the conservative values of her village, embodied by the local pastor. Reading parts of the play aloud, we will discuss how the drama might be staged to bring out the interaction of the three characters to maximum effect. We will also try to answer certain questions: Is the play believable? Is it cathartic? And ultimately, is the play depressing, life affirming, or both?
LIMITED REGISTRATION: 15
Suggested Reading: Any copy of Athol Fugard’s The
Road to Mecca. An inexpensive version is published by Theater Communications
Group Inc.
Instructor John Trainor, BA, MS, MA, has been well known to
theater goers in the Berkshires for decades. He has acted and directed for the
stage not only in western Massachusetts and eastern New York, but also in
Africa and the Bahamas.
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OLLI: the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College Partners in education with Williams College, Bard College at Simon's Rock and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts 1350 West Street | Pittsfield, MA 01201 | 413.236.2190 | olli@berkshirecc.edu