Powerful My Children! My Africa! ends run

It was not a natural disaster or a sign from the heavens. Instead, it was a two and a half hour play with enough force to alter your life forever. Athol Fugard's popularly-acclaimed play My Children! My Africa!, which was brought to Annenberg's Zellerbach Theatre by The People's Light and Theater Company last week, left audiences stunned and absorbed in thought. "I don't know a person who has walked away from that show and hasn't been overpowered by it," said Thea Diamond, director of education at the Annenberg Center. "It's the kind of a show that makes walls come down and breaks hearts." My Children! My Africa! is a touchingly political drama set in current day South Africa. Three distinct characters, Mr. M, a South African high school teacher, Isabel Dyson, a white, English student and Thami Mbikwana a black, South African student, deal with the evils of apartheid through their own misconceptions and prejudices. "You have two different ways of entering the play," Diamond said. "If you're a parent, you can enter through Mr. M. If you're a student, you enter through Thami or you enter through Isabel." The provocative and sensitive subject matter of the play was expected to promote discussion. And through the help of student groups and faculty, Diamond helped facilitate small open forums to discuss subjects ranging from the content of the play to race relations in South Africa and the U.S. "When I went around to the staff and faculty, everybody was equally enthusiastic and willing to lend their support," Diamond said. "The second they knew what the subject of the play was, they wanted to be involved." "We basically had the same response from the student population as well," she added. "We set up all these events, talks, discussions. The word that I keep hearing from everybody is 'powerful.' " The three performers and the director spent some time talking with the audiences and answering questions about the show. They discussed how much they learned from working on the show. Benjamin Brown, who played Thami Mbikwana, said he was taught a number of life-altering lessons. "For me, this play is about me as an African-American saying, 'Hey, I'm going to do what I can to help somebody along the way. I'm going to do what I can to inform somebody about African American history . . . I'm going to try to do what I say I believe in,' " Brown said. "That's what I've gotten out of My Children! My Africa!." Mxolisi Notshulwanu, a College and Engineering junior and a native South African, said that although he had some questions about Fugard's liberal point of view, he praised the production as a whole. "Overall the play was beautiful," said Notshulwanu. "The play was powerful."