A Lesson from Aloes

Athol Fugard’s searing, textually raw political drama 'A Lesson from Aloes' arrived on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre in 1980, completing an accomplished seasonal engagement and capturing multiple major award nominations following its hit regional runs. The claustrophobic three-character narrative unfolds inside a sun-scorched backyard in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1963, tracking a progressive Afrikaner and his high-strung, traumatized wife whose stable relationships entry a catastrophic crisis when an old non-white anti-apartheid political activist arrives on the eve of his state-enforced exile, unpeeling a web of hidden deceptions and paranoia. Directed by Fugard himself, it starred Harris Yulin.