Heavy, With Child

The Fugard Theatre is staging a new production of Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca, starring Emily Child alongside Sandra Prinsloo and Marius Weyers

- Bruce Dennill

The Road to Mecca is, in many ways, art about artists. Its central character is Helen Martins, the eccentric woman who created the bizarre Owl House in NieuBethesda in the Karoo, now a tourist landmark. Does that make it a different type of work for the actors involved? Emily Child, who plays Elsa Barlow, Martins’ closest friend, is not convinced.

“Elsa’s an English teacher,” she notes. “They bond over a belief in expression and the right to express yourself. For us, all the characters are very different and brand new, so they require a new process. That said, it is a very personal story. In the creative world, we all know a Helen, and all of us in the play have been to the Owl House. And like Helen, we all want to be understood and accepted.”

Working in a small cast alongside Sandra Prinsloo and Marius Weyers must add an extra level of intensity to the story.