When brotherly love ties itself in a knot

JOHN YI/YH Austin and Blasher play dangerous games together.

Athol Fugard is a playwright of small moments. Rather than interweaving complicated plots and unlimited action, Fugard instead focuses on the more subtle interaction between individuals.

In Blood Knot, going up this weekend at Nick Chapel, Fugard tells the tale of two brothers, reunited as adults, living together in a one-room shack in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. At his best, the playwright achieves powerful comic and tragic effects from the simple lives of these two young black men. At his worst, he leaves the audience wondering what, if anything, has actually occurred on stage. For the most part, this weekend's production of Blood Knot, directed by Lisa Limor Rabie, BK '01, makes Fugard's complicated world come powerfully alive for its viewers.

The play opens with Morris (David Blasher, DC '01) sitting impatiently in the shack. He tidies the room, checks the clock, picks at his fingernails, returns to the clock, stares into space, and once again checks the time. When Zachariah (Reggie Austin, BK '01) eventually returns to the shack after a long day's work, Morris immediately brightens and begins to talk. As this ritual is repeated, the pattern of the brothers eventually becomes clear; Morris stays at home, cooking and cleaning, while Zachariah works long hours as a guard at a park for whites.

The brothers couldn't be more unlike each other. Morris has very light skin, reads and writes, constantly thinks of the future, and has no interest in women; Zachariah is dark and illiterate, lives solely for the present, and lusts after any and all women. The brothers are close despite these seemingly irreconcilable differences, and as the audience learns more about their history, the dangerous strength of the bond between Morris and Zachariah becomes painfully clear.

As Morris, Blasher is strongest in the later part of the play, and he becomes increasingly comfortable with his character as time wears on. Ironically, he handles the more difficult scenes of the play with ease, yet sometimes falters when the dramatic stakes are not as high. He is in his element when directly addressing the audience, and several of his monologues are almost eerie in their theatrical intimacy.

Austin is also quite good as the simple, passionate Zachariah; he portrays the character as slow and uneducated without his performance ever slipping into caricature. He does an especially nice job with the physicality of the overworked Zachariah, and his extreme weariness is particularly palpable as he soaks his aching feet at the end of each day.

In general, Blasher and Austin work well together, and as their conflicted emotions about one another become more and more apparent, the play's tension increases. However, the production is not always able to maintain the level of intensity needed to carry off some of the most important moments of the play, and there are several segments which detract from from the power of their story.

As the play continues and as race becomes more important in the lives of these two very different young men, the story begins to take on a significance that extends beyond the walls of the South African shack. But Fugard never loses sight of the fact that his play is about two young men caught in the "blood knot" of brotherhood. Their society doesn't directly inflict pain on them, but through Morris and Zachariah's bizarre, fraternal games, Blood Knot illustrates how the oppressed citizens of an inherently racist society learn to perpetuate its sick ideals.

Despite some scattered weak moments, Rabie's production tackles the difficult Blood Knot admirably, bringing the audience into the political psychology of Fugard's world and into the difficult lives of his characters.

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