The Train Driver and Other Plays

Athol Fugard

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781559363860
• eBook ISBN: 9781559367325
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: African Drama
• Index: Literature

For me [The Train Driver] is the biggest of them all. Everything I have written before has been a journey to this.—Athol Fugard

The Train Driver is classic Athol Fugard, and considered by the author to be the most important play he has written. This seminal work, inspired by a true story of a mother who, with her three small children, committed suicide on the train tracks outside of Cape Town, South Africa, unfolds as the train driver, tortured by such an act of final despair, seeks to find his own truth with the help of a grave digger who buries the ones without names.

This volume includes Coming Home, Fugard’s first work addressing AIDS in South Africa, and Have You Seen Us?, his first play set in America about a South African transplant living in San Diego. Also included are pages from the author’s notebooks written in 2000, when he began writing The Train Driver, and an afterword by Marianne McDonald.

Coming Home

For Marianne McDonald

PRODUCTION HISTORY

Coming Home received its world premiere at the Long Wharf Theatre (Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director; Joan Channick, Managing Director) in New Haven, Connecticut, on January 21, 2009. The production was directed by Gordon Edelstein; the set designer was Eugene Lee, the costume designer was Jessica Ford, the lighting designer was Stephen Strawbridge, the sound designer was Corrine Livingston, the stage manager was Jason Kaiser. The cast was:

VERONICA JONKERS MANNETJIE JONKERS ALFRED WITBOOI OUPA JONKERS

Roslyn Ruff Namumba Santos (younger); Mel Eichler (older) Colman Domingo Lou Ferguson

The play received its west coast premiere at The Fountain Theatre (Deborah Lawlor, Producing Artistic Director; Stephen Sachs, Co-Artistic Director; Simon Levy, Producing Director/Dramaturg) in Los Angeles, on June 20, 2009. The production was directed by Stephen Sachs; the set designer was Laura Fine Hawkes, the costume designer was Shon Le Blanc, the lighting designer was Christian Epps, the sound designer/composer was Peter Bayne, the production stage manager was Liz McGavock. The cast was:

VERONICA JONKERS MANNETJIE JONKERS ALFRED WITBOOI OUPA JONKERS

Deidrie Henry Timothy Taylor (younger); Matthew Elam, Noah Murtadha (older) Thomas Silcott Adolphus Ward

The play opened at The Wilma Theater (Blanka Zizka and Jiri Zizka, Co-Artistic Directors; James Haskins, Managing Director) in Philadelphia, on October 21, 2009. The production was directed by Blanka Zizka; the set and costume designer was Anne Patterson, the lighting designer was Thom Weaver, the sound designer was Andrea Sotzing, the dramaturg was Walter Bilderback, the stage manager was Patreshettarlini Adams. The cast was:

VERONICA JONKERS MANNETJIE JONKERS ALFRED WITBOOI OUPA JONKERS

Patrice Johnson Elijah Felder (younger); Antonio J. Dandridge (older) Nyambi Nyambi Lou Ferguson

The play opened at Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Tony Taccone, Artistic Director; Susan Medak, Managing Director) in Berkeley, on January 20, 2010. The production was directed by Gordon Edelstein; the set designer was Eugene Lee, the costume designer was Jessica Ford, the lighting/projection designer was Stephen Strawbridge, the sound designer was Corrine K. Livingston, the stage manager was Michael Suenkel. The cast was:

VERONICA JONKERS MANNETJIE JONKERS ALFRED WITBOOI OUPA JONKERS

Roslyn Ruff Kohle T. Bolton (younger); Jaden Malik Wiggins (older) Thomas Silcott Lou Ferguson

CHARACTERS

VERONICA JONKERS: a young woman in her late twenties.

MANNETJIE JONKERS: Veronica’s son; about five years old when we first see him.

ALFRED WITBOOI: the same age as Veronica.

OUPA JONKERS: Veronica’s grandfather, an old man.

TIME

The action of the play takes place over a period of about five years, starting in 2002.

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

—T. S. Eliot
“Little Gidding,”
Four Quartets

Morning star lights the way;
Restless dream all done;
Shadows gone, break of day,
Life has just begun.
Every tear wiped away,
Pain and sickness gone;
Wide awake there with Him!
Peace goes on and on!
Going home, going home,
I’ll be going home.
See the light! See the sun!
I’m just going home.

—Gospel hymn

Act One

SCENE I

A bleak little room. Late afternoon sunlight is pouring in through the room’s one window. There is a door at the far wall, a simple table with two chairs in the center of the room, and a bed with a mattress (no linen) against the wall on one side. On the opposite side of the room is a sagging line with an old blanket draped over it, obviously meant to curtain off and make private a corner space.

The door opens. Veronica and Mannetjie enter hesitantly. They are loaded up with a variety of bundles and an old and battered suitcase. They remain standing on the threshold for a few seconds, looking at the room.

VERONICA: This is it. Oupa’s house.

(She enters the room and wanders around, ending up at the bed, where she sits. She registers Mannetjie, still standing uncertainly at the door.)

Sorry, my darling. Put your parcels down and come sit here with Mommy.

(Mannetjie joins her on the bed. Veronica puts an arm around him.)

It’s just so strange being back here. So many memories. This was Mommy’s home when she was a little girl. Me and Oupa. In here.

All those stories Mommy was telling you about me as a little girl . . . in here. Grandma Betty died when I was still very small, so after that it was just me and Oupa in here. That hokkie there behind the curtain, that was my place. Oupa slept on this bed. Ja. Supper and breakfast time at that table. I did all the cooking, even when I was still only a small little girl. ’Specially Oupa’s favorite . . . Boontjie soup with some pieces of nice fat mutton. So what do you think? Like it?

MANNETJIE (Shaking his head disconsolately): No. I don’t like it.

VERONICA: I know, my darling. Mommy knows it doesn’t look nice now, but you just wait and see. Mommy is going to fix it up and then it will look very different.

(She leaves the bed and goes to the other side of the room with the makeshift curtain. She takes it down, bundles it up and throws it into a corner.)

Good-bye to that piece of rubbish. We’ll find something special to hang here because this is now going to be the room of Mr. Manfred Jonkers. And who is he?

MANNETJIE: Me.

VERONICA: That’s right. This is going to be your very own room just as it was mine. We’ll get pictures of animals and paste them all over the wall. You would like that, wouldn’t you?

MANNETJIE: Yes, Mommy.

VERONICA: We’ll cut them out of magazines. That’s what I did in here when I was a little girl. But no animals for little Veronica. She wanted pictures of Eartha Kitt. Lena Horne and of course Mama Africa . . . Miriam Makeba. Those were my pinups. But that’s not all we’re going to do in here. You just wait and see. Mommy’s got ideas, Mannetjie.

(Another tour of the room.)

Pretty curtain on this window, nice tablecloth, some other pictures on the wall. We’ll make the bed a sort of sofa with a lot of cushions the way they do it in Cape Town . . . A doormat so that we must all wipe our feet clean when we come in here . . .

(She has reached a little shelf next to the door—it holds a collection of small tins. A little laugh as she takes one of them and shakes it. Something rattles inside.)

He kept all his seeds in these.

(She opens it and goes back to Mannetjie on...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• The Train Driver
• Coming Home
• Have You Seen Us?
• Glossary
• Afterword
• Pages from a Notebook
• About the Author