“The Train Driver” a tragic story of hope at Long Wharf

NEW HAVEN — “The Train Driver” is a masterful telling of the tragic story of suicide and hope by Athol Fugard and directed by Gordon Edelstein at Long Wharf Theatre.
Set in South Africa as the other Fugard plays that I have seen are, this tale poetically unfolds like a detective mystery, with questions that are indirectly revealed along the way.
A train driver, Roelf Visagie, played by the superlative Harry Groener, is haunted and tormented like a post-traumatic shock victim, after the train he was driving killed a young black woman and her baby.
Roelf arrives at a graveyard for the unnamed dead about four weeks after the incident where he believes she was buried, and wants to find her grave — This discovery he hopes might end his torment.
The thoughtful Anthony Chisholm plays Simon Hanabe, the lone gravedigger, and witness to Roelf’s tragedy.
Simon spends a great deal of his time during this one act play listening to Roelf rant, but then he has nothing but time on his hands. Much of his time is normally taken up with making sure that the unmarked graves containing “the sleeping people” are protected from roving packs of wild dogs and gangs.
As dark and sad as this story is, there is the occasional oasis of dark humor, such as when Roelf interrogates Simon as to why he puts junk and trash on top of the graves.
Do they “get to Heaven faster with a Jetta hubcap?” Roelf cuttingly asks.
Simon puts rocks and hubcaps on the gravesites, he says, not out of disrespect, but to remind him that someone is buried there so he doesn’t dig in the same spot again.
He also has to dig the graves deep enough to keep the wild dogs from digging up the bodies, he explains.
It’s a painful road to self-discovery and revelation for Roelf, who is obsessed by the nameless woman who committed suicide and child who died, and also is tormented by the fact that no one cared about enough to claim from the morgue.
“Nobody could tell me her name,” he says with wild urgency and crazed disbelief.
Roelf does most of the talking and is a man possessed and in search of his sanity, teetering on the edge of reality and driven to find resolution and peace.
“She is dead and I am well. I think I killed her. Everybody says I didn’t,” Roelf says in dismay.
Roelf has moments of grand, operatic emotion, with King Lear like howling at the world and circumstances and unanswerable questions filled with anger and frustration, and beautifully wrought poetic language delivered with passion and pathos.
Through his quest to find out who she is, Roelf learns about who he is and what a different world the blacks in South Africa lead.
“I think I got some sort of feeling of your world,” he says to Simon, observing, “Our world is so different.”
The two develop an odd but real friendship of sorts, which also gets mucked up by circumstances beyond their control.
The ending, which I won’t tell here, is a complete circle of resolution that feels like poetic justice.
The set, by Eugene Lee, of the sandy dry graveyard and shanty that Simon calls home, is perfectly suited to the bleak and desolate mood of the play, while the unobtrusive native music fits well, with sound design by John Gromada.
As tragic as this play is, ultimately it feels like a story of hope and possibility — that despite how bad things are today, there is a chance that they will be better tomorrow.

TRAIN DRIVER

3½ Stars
Location: 222 Sargent Drive, New Haven
Production: By Athol Fugard. Directed by Gordon Edelstein. Set design by Eugene Lee. Costume design by Susan Hilferty. Lighting design by Christopher Akerlind. Sound design by John Gromada.
Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
Show Times: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday at 7 p.m., Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 p.m., with Wednesday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. and Saturday matinees at 3 p.m. through Sunday, Nov. 21.
Tickets: $35 to $70. For more information call their box office at 203-787-4282, or visit their website at www.longwharf.org
ACTOR…CHARACTER
Anthony Chishom … Simon Hanabe
Harry Groener … Roelf Visagie