Fugard's Train Driver Gets East Coast Premiere at Long Wharf

Long Wharf Theatre will present the East Coast premiere of Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver, directed by Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein.

The play will run Oct. 27-Nov. 21 on the Mainstage. Curtain times are Tuesdays at 7, Wednesdays at 2 and 7, Thursdays and Fridays at 8, Saturdays at 3 and 8 and Sundays at 2 and 7. Tickets are $45-$70 with special discounts available.

Fugard’s newest play, which received its world premiere at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town, South Africa in March, mines the depths and complications of the human heart. Roelf Visagie (Tony Award-nominee Harry Groener) wanders the graveyards of Port Elizabeth, searching among the unnamed ones for the final, nondescript resting place of a young woman he unintentionally killed. When Roelf looks for answers, he encounters a mysterious gravedigger named Simon (Drama Desk Award- winner Anthony Chisholm) who guides him towards tenuous and troubled understanding.

Based on a real life incident, the play explores guilt in post-apartheid South Africa, continuing the theatre’s long and fruitful association with the playwright. The theatre produced his first hit, Sizwe Banzi is Dead and, more recently Coming Home and Have You Seen Us?

“For me, [The Train Driver] is the biggest of them all. Everything I have written before has been a journey to this … refusing to allow the dead to pass into oblivion,” Fugard said.

Box office phone number: 203-787-4282
Website: www.longwharf.org