Plays are itty bitty things. In a bookstore or library a zillion titles can fit on a shelf. "The Road to Mecca" by Athol Fugard is a slim 70 pages long - hardly enough for a respectable short story, 56 pages too short for a film script of a Hollywood B movie.
But a play can often pack very large ideas into a small space and a brief time, and Fugard's "Mecca" is certainly one of those. Trust, freedom, social convention, hypocrisy, the needs of the body and of the soul, the danger and the gift of art - all these and more are the complex currents swirling through the simple three character construction of "The Road to Mecca."
Set in a small Afrikaaner village in the midst of the arid plains of South Africa, the play centers on Miss Helen, an elderly widow whose later years have been spent creating a sculpture garden so bizarre that it, and she, seem to threaten the staid community she rejects for the sake of its creation. Is she simply a senile old woman, a mad eccentric in danger of harming herself through her love of candle fire? Or is there some deeper meaning to the fractured mirrors and flickering wicks of her vision?
Marge Winters offers a magnificent performance as Miss Helen. Moving effortlessly from befuddlement to clarity and back again, Winters is deft and believable. She is both bridge and barrier between the two opposing forces that are defined by their fruitless attempts to define and usurp her. Miki Welling as Else and Leon Wagner as Marius provide those two complicated counterweights. There is no bad guy in this play though Wagner carries a hint of evil in his avuncular dignity. Neither is there a golden-haired future, though Welling's liberalism seems inclusive enough. These characters are complex; these performances correct.
Much praise goes to director James Floss for the ease with which the audience accesses this difficult play. The accented language off South Africa is merely suggested and the degree of tension caught in stillness rather than excessive movement.
Other aspects of the presentation provoked admiration and dissatisfaction. The set by Timaree McCormick is a marvel of lush and provocative detail - never before have I seen an audience stop on the way out to examine a set close up - yet the sculpture garden itself is invisible to all but the very center of the house.
A play that is largely about light creates a huge burden for the lighting designer. Lure Killpatric does a pretty good job of suggesting the fact of candle light, yet I found myself distracted by the external manipulation of psychic darkness and light.
And the sound, while authentic to culture and place, seemed too loud in parts of the house and a mere murmur in others.
No costume designer was credited in the program, which might explain the fine understatedness arid the fact that all the shoes were quiet and comfortable.
Opening night was nearly flawless. One can only wonder how good the play will be in mid-run. Special plaudits to the stage manager for the lovely touch of the black cat.
"The Road lo Mecca" runs through Feb. 26 at the Pacific Art Center Theater in Arcata Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m., with a 2 pm Sunday matinee on Feb. 20. Ticket prices are $10 general and $8 students and seniors on Saturday. On Fridays, they are $8 and $7, and Thursdays and Sundays $6 and $5. For reservations, call the PACT at 822-0828.