Set during the early days of the South African apartheid, Master Harold And The Boys is a powerful film adaptation of a disturbing play about racism. South African born playwright and novelist Athol Fugard is probably best known as the writer of Tsotsi, which was published in 1980 and later adapted into a 2005 film directed by Gavin Hood that went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
In 1982, a couple of years after he wrote Tsotsi, Fugard penned the play Master Harold And The Boys. As Fugard shares several things in common with the titular Master Harold – including his birth name and a similar childhood – it’s said the play is semi-autobiographical. A critique of how institutionalized racism like the apartheid filters down to those living under it, Master Harold And The Boys was initially banned in South Africa and was the first of Fugard’s plays to premiere outside of his homeland.
In 2010, Master Harold And The Boys was adapted for the big screen by actor/director Lonny Price, who played the title role in a 1982 Broadway production alongside Danny Glover. The film takes place in the South African city of Port Elizabeth in the early 1950s not long after the introduction of apartheid and stars Freddie Highmore (Bates Motel) as the titular character - or Hally as he is better known.
Echoing the intimate setting of the play, much of the action in Master Harold And The Boys unfolds over one rainy afternoon in a tearoom owned by Hally’s mother and manned by two black waiters named Sam (Ving Rhames) and Willie (Patrick Mofokeng). Alongside losing a leg in World War II, Hally’s father is also a racist drunk so Sam and Willie have become surrogate fathers to Hally in his absence. The close bond between the trio is forever changed over the course of one fateful afternoon when Hally gets news his father is coming home after a stint in hospital, and he lashes out at his friends in a disturbing way that shows just how indoctrinated into racism and the apartheid Hally really is.
Unfortunately, Master Harold And The Boys didn’t get much attention when it was released unlike other films dealing with the apartheid like Invictus and District 9 that were released around the same time. Nevertheless, Master Harold And The Boys is a faithful stage to screen adaptation of Athol Fugard’s play that offers a brutally honest and unflinching look at one of the darkest eras of South African history.
Next: Lord Of The Flies 1990 Is The Most Underrated Adaptation
