Director Lonny Price revisits the Athol Fugard classic in which he starred on Broadway 20 years ago.

An interview by John Istel
Photos: Photofest, Martha Swope, Joan Marcus

A rehearsal for Roundabout’s "Master Harold" has just ended and director Lonny Price bolts from the room as if from a starting gate. He has somehow managed to schedule two appointments at the same time: an interview for Front & Center and a pep-talk to the cast of his recently opened musical, Urban Cowboy.

Price is more thoroughbred jockey than amateur mechanical bull rider, however. For the last several years, the one-time actor has guided a number of high profile projects to the finish line, including the New York Philharmonic’s acclaimed concert rendering of Sweeney Todd in 2000, starring Patti Lupone and George Hearn, and 2001’s sleeper hit, the musical A Class Act, for which Price directed, co-authored the libretto, and performed.

As he sets off across Times Square, the interview begins on this busy backstretch. His experience as an actor clearly has taught him a thing or two about picking up pace. After a year of nonstop work, much of it on bringing his beleaguered musical to Broadway, Price in fact looks forward to slowing down. Directing "Master Harold," he says, "seems like an oasis."

That sigh is partly because Price played Hally, the young white South African character whose coming-of-age centers Athol Fugard’s play, when it astonished Broadway audiences in 1983. After its Roundabout opening in May, he’ll stage another Stephen Sondheim concert with the Chicago Symphony in Ravinia before taking a long break—although imagining this 44-year-old kicking back poolside is a concept hard to conjure. Once at the theatre, the affable, funny, affectionate former actor leaps onstage and embraces each Urban Cowboy cast member, before urging them to stay focused. After sending them on their way, he settles on the edge of an empty orchestra seat to focus on "Master Harold."

Front & Center: It must be quite a change to go from directing a splashy Broadway musical that takes place in a rowdy Houston country-and-western bar to working on a quiet, lyrical three-character play that takes place in a tea room?

Lonny Price: It’s a very different experience and a welcome one. I flip back and forth between straight plays and musicals and I love that. I did that as an actor and I love it as a director. A musical requires very different skills. Certainly the scene work is somewhat alike but a scene in a musical is two or three pages long at the most before there’s a song. In "Master Harold" Hally has these monologues that Athol wrote that I call arias. They’re similar to songs. But I’m very grateful to be working on a show with three characters and no moving parts—especially when I’m working with such beautiful writing, such poetry.

Christopher Denham and Danny Glover in "Master Harold"...

Was "Master Harold" a project that you had wanted to do or did Roundabout approach you?

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very, very long time, since I first started directing. Several years ago, Athol was in town when his play Sorrows and Rejoicings was at Second Stage. After I had seen the show, he asked me to lunch. He sort of suggested that I start directing his plays.

I may have misunderstood it, but the gist of what I got was that he didn’t want to direct anymore. He was interested in passing the baton in some way. I was incredibly honored and flattered. And he suggested that I start with "Master Harold."

I suggested we do it with Danny [Glover] as Sam, and he said yes in three seconds. I called Danny, and it took us awhile to figure out his schedule. Danny has a very complicated life now, as you can imagine. He’s not only a wildly successful actor but he’s also a statesman to some degree because he’s an ambassador for UNICEF. But he didn’t need much convincing.

Another reason I wanted to do it is that I have assistants in their 20s, and they’ll see the poster of the original show in my office and say, "What was that play?" And I think, "Oh, my god. There’s a generation of people who don’t know "Master Harold." To me, it’s such a major piece of work that I wanted the world to have it again. I wanted people who missed it the first time to be able to experience it.

There have been other productions outside New York. Have you ever seen another production?

I have never seen one. It was done a lot in regional theatres. It had a tour. James Earl Jones replaced Zakes Mokae on Broadway when he left, and then Jones toured with it. So 20 years ago, it had its life. But it’s 100 minutes without an intermission, and it’s really tricky to find a kid—or a young man—who looks young enough but has the acting chops to play Hally. That’s tricky.

Athol Fugard directs Lonny Price in "Master Harold"...

Was it particularly hard for you to cast the role of Hally because you had once played the role?

It wasn’t hard. I wanted someone that wasn’t "actory" so that you can really believe he’s 17 years old. He’s got to be on the cusp—he can’t be a man yet. It’s a coming-of-age story. Christopher [Denham] really had the best of both. When he walked in, I wanted him immediately. He somehow had a connection to the material that was very strong. And it turns out he’s a writer and playwright and novelist and apparently an accomplished writer. I’m delighted to have gotten to work with him. I watched a lot of people during the auditions, and I hadn’t really heard the material out loud for all those years. But when Chris did the kite monologue, I found myself getting very emotional. I thought, "It’s got to be him."

When you were acting in it, did you ever think, "If I ever get a chance to direct this, I know some things I’d do differently"?

No. In those years I had no interest in directing. I was so happy to be an actor. The truth is that a lot of what I’m doing is what Athol did because it was perfect. This isn’t a revisionist version of the play. I’m doing it in a simple, straightforward way, just as it was presented originally. It’s not set on the moon. There’s no grand concept. The play’s strong enough that it just needs to be stated clearly and audiences will have the experience they are meant to have.

"This isn’t a revisionist version of the play. I’m doing it in a simple, straightforward way, just as it was presented originally."

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When you’re directing Chris in your old role, do you feel any tension between the way he’s performing the part and the way you used to act it? Do you ever want to say, "Well, I used to do it this way..."?

I’m trying to let him discover it, and yet I know it from the inside out. In some ways that’s very useful. I hope. I know how to navigate it, having played it for nine months and, although it was a long time ago, I remember it surprisingly well. I remember the journey of it, the orchestration of it. Hopefully, I’m supporting Chris’s own interpretation and giving him a foundation, as well as some boundaries so he won’t waste too much time going down a blind alley that I know won’t serve him well.

Conversely, has Chris done things that you wished you had thought of?

Oh, lots of things. Absolutely. We’re very different as actors and he’s marvelous. I would have stolen a lot from him if I had seen his performance.

Danny Glover in "Master Harold"...

For Danny Glover, it must be a similar trip down memory lane since he also was so involved in that first Broadway production.

I think we both feel really grateful to be in the room working on it because these kinds of plays don’t come along too often. Part of the reason I stopped acting was because after this, which was certainly the best part in the best straight play I’d ever been in, material that good didn’t come along often enough. You’d have to ask Danny, but I think he feels the same way and he seems to be having a pretty good time. It just feels right. Danny seems like Sam. And we have a wonderful Willie, Michael Boatman.

Although this is perhaps Fugard’s most personal play, it was originally written during apartheid in South Africa and therefore confronts that society’s racism. Do you see its resonance in America today?

Absolutely. In the play, there’s the whole metaphor about ballroom dancing, which is a political metaphor. Sam explains how life is like ballroom dancing: We must all share the same dance floor but without bumping into each other. I mean we’re at war now—if only we had all listened to Sam and Athol. It’s incredibly pertinent. It’s also a lot about fathers and sons and mentors. What is a good father? How do you reject the good father and destroy the one you love? The humanistic aspects of the show are completely timeless. That it happened during apartheid certainly gave it an extra jolt, but I don’t think the play needs that situation. It’s going to be plenty powerful.

It helps if you have some understanding about the segregationist apartheid laws under which people lived in South Africa at the time. That makes Hally’s choice of Sam as a surrogate father- figure all the more extraordinary. And Sam is learning from Hally, because South African blacks had less schooling. They’re both teaching each other. In the play, Hally describes the room Sam is living in at the back of a boarding house. There’s no plumbing, a cement floor, a bed, a dresser—and nothing else. Knowing the reason why he’s living like that is useful.

What are the most challenging moments or scenes to direct?

In a weird way, the high drama tends to take care of itself because the stakes are big and the actors are good. Certainly getting the climax right is crucial. But the trickier part for me is the first 45 minutes. There’s a lot of exposition. Keeping that interesting and making sure the show builds its tension all the way through is a challenge. The play then does take an unexpected turn, and when it does, it just shocks the hell out of you. That’s how brilliantly it’s written. It’s whiplash. Getting there is a little tricky, but it’s an amazing thing.

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