Valley Song. Athol Fugard

      BOOKS BY ATHOL FUGARD

      AVAILABLE FROM TCG

      Blood Knot and Other Plays

      A Lesson from Aloes

      Marigolds in August and The Guest

      My Children! My Africa!

      Notebooks: 1960–1977

      Playland and A Place with the Pigs

      The Road to Mecca

      Statements

      FORTHCOMING

      Cousins (a memoir)

      Copyright © 1996 by Athol Fugard

      Valley Song is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc.,

      355 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10017-0217.

      All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights including, but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of these plays by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: Beth Blickers, William Morris Agency, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, [phone].

      Excerpts: Carolyn Slaughter’s Introduction to The Little Karoo by Pauline Smith, copyright © 1990 by Pauline Smith, St. Martin’s Press, New York; Karoo Morning by Guy Butler, copyright © 1977 by Guy Butler, D. Philip, Cape Town; Towards the Mountain by Alan Paton, copyright © 1980 by Alan Paton, Scribner’s Publishing Company, New York; “The Man Born to Farming,” from Farming: A Hand Book by Wendell Berry, copyright © 1970 by Wendell Berry, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York are reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

      Cover: LisaGay Hamilton and Athol Fugard in the 1995—96 McCarter Theatre/ Manhattan Theatre Club production of Valley Song. Photo courtesy of T. Charles Erickson.

      Photograph on page ii—iii is reprinted by the kind permission of Satour.

      Thanks to Janice Paran of the McCarter Theatre and Susan Hilferty for providing additional material to this edition.

      Fugard, Athol.

      Valley song / Athol Fugard.

      eISBN 9781559361194

      I. Grandfathers—South Africa—Drama. 2. Girls—South Africa—Drama.

      I. Title.

      PR9369.3.F8V35 1996

      822—dc20 96–7091

      CIP

      Cover design by Lisa Govan

      Book design by The Typeworks

      First Edition, July 1996

      Second Printing, September 1998

      TO THE MEMORY OF

      BARNEY SIMON

      PRODUCTION HISTORY

      Valley Song was originally produced August 1995 by Mannie Manim Productions, Johannesburg, South Africa, under the direction of the playwright. Set and costume design was by Susan Hilferty, lighting design by Mannie Manim and original music and sound design by DiDi Kriel. The cast was as follows:

      Valley Song received its American premiere October 1995 at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. It was produced by the McCarter Theatre in association with the Manhattan Theatre Club, with a subsequent production at the Manhattan Theatre Club. The production was directed by the playwright, with sets and costumes by Susan Hilferty, lighting design by Dennis Parichy and original music and sound by DiDi Kriel. The cast was as follows:

      NOTES

      Karoo: A vast semi-desert region in the heart of South Africa. “Karoo” is a Khoi word meaning “place of little water.” Several mountain ranges dot the Karoo, among them the Sneeuberg (Snow Mountains) in the southeast, whose highest peak (6300 feet) is the Kompassberg. Few plants grow on the dry mountains, but farms thrive in the valleys and lowlands. Most of the inhabitants of the Karoo are either white Afrikaners or coloreds.

      The Valley: A fertile valley deep in the Sneeuberg; fruits, vegetables and alfalfa are produced there. At this time, all of the farmland is still owned by whites.

      The Village: The small town of Nieu-Bethesda. Resident white population: 65; colored population: 950. Like most rural South African villages, Nieu-Bethesda is still essentially divided into two areas: the white town and the outlying “location” populated by coloreds and blacks.

      Coloreds: One of four official racial categories (along with whites, blacks and Asians) of the “old” South Africa. Colored is defined as anyone of mixed racial descent. The Colored population of South Africa is approximately 4.5 million; their language is Afrikaans.

      In the Karoo the earth is red and covered with small sage and milk bushes; the air is so still and clear that objects miles away seem close to you and sound travels as far as the eye can see. Day after cloudless day the sunburnt plains shimmer beneath the blue African sky; a little hillock stands out in sharp relief and, in the distance—which gives the impression of being infinite—you may see a white-painted farmhouse surrounded by orange trees. There is nothing else. This is the Karoo. And for those who have lost their hearts to it, no other place on earth can compare.

      —Carolyn Slaughter

      The Karoo, once you have been given the hint, is the eroded ruins of a world, the great lake and its giant reptiles gone but for a few bones and ripple marks, gone like the Sodom and Gomorrah in the earthquake and fire, epochs of reptilian life abolished, stone scorched and purged, and then sculpted clean and bare into noble shapes, the tactics of the elemental artist spelt out in the fine sand of the watercourses, his signature clear in the cirrus clouds...In that vast semi-desert it is difficult to forget your smallness.

      —Guy Butler

      I cannot describe my early response to the beauty of hill and stream and tree as anything less than an ecstasy...I was much older before I responded, no less intensely, to the beauty of plain and sky and distant lines of mountains. When I first saw the expanse of the...desolate stretches of the Karoo I did not at once acknowledge that they were beautiful. The qualities of harshness, starkness and seeming endlessness did not seem to me to be compatible with beauty.

      —Alan Paton