Trying to Regain Childhood’s Magic | Athol Fugard in His Play ‘The Shadow of the Hummingbird’
Charles IsherwoodApril 12, 2014: NEW HAVEN — “I’m sick of my rational existence in the ‘real world,’ ” the elderly man grumbles to his grandson. “I want to live once again in one full of mystery and magic and shadows I can play with.” At 10, the boy has also left behind the years when all new sights and sounds are exotic and exciting, and the imagination can meet the physical world on equal terms. In The Shadow of the Hummingbird, a short, sweet and very slight new play written by, and starring, the venerable South African playwright Athol Fugard, the old man tries to reawaken in his grandson (and in himself) an appreciation of the beauty and the wonder immanent in the world outside the windows of his study in Southern California. The play, having its premiere at the Long Wharf Theater here, opens with an introductory scene in which Mr. Fugard’s character bustles around this room, shuffling through piles of journals in search of a particular entry. (The scene, written by Paula Fourie, draws on Mr. Fugard’s own notebooks.) His energy seems boundless at first. But his joints aren’t as resilient as they used to be, and he curses gently (“Confound it!”) when he drops a pile of books he has just barely succeeded in retrieving from a tough spot.
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