West Coast premiere of new play by Athol Fugard at Fountain Theatre

LOS ANGELES - Oct. 7, 2015 - PRLog -- In the West Coast premiere of the newest play by Athol Fugard, aging farm laborer Nukain has spent his life transforming the rocks at Revolver Creek into a vibrant garden of painted flowers. Now, the presence of the final unpainted rock, as well as his young companion Bokkie, has forced Nukain to confront his legacy as an artist and a black man in 1980s South Africa.

Both Fugard and the Fountain come full circle with Painted Rocks, a play inspired by the work of real-life outsider artist Nukain Mabuza. In 1972, a personal encounter with outsider artist Helen Martins, a reclusive and ostracized figure in a small, ultra-conservative Afrikaans community who had created an extraordinary collection of statues in her back yard, led to Fugard’s celebrated play, The Road to Mecca. And it was the Fountain’s Los Angeles premiere of that play in 2000, directed by Fountain co-artistic director Stephen Sachs, that introduced the playwright to the theater he would come to call his “artistic home on the West Coast.”

“Forty years later [after my encounter with Helen Martins], I became aware of another outsider artist worthy of the same attention, working in completely different circumstances and also with a different medium,” wrote Fugard on the website of South Africa’s Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, where he is currently an artist-in-residence. “The environment of present-day South Africa made me realize the true potential of Nukain’s story, and that, even though he worked on the fringes, it can in fact not be fully realized without taking on the realities of his existence in apartheid South Africa.”

“Possibly, at this moment in our history, the stories that need telling are more urgent than any of the stories that needed telling during the apartheid years,” Fugard said in an interview with NPR.

“At the heart of Athol's beautiful new play is the issue of seeing and being seen – as an artist, as a man, especially as a black man,” says director Simon Levy. “It's an on-going, universal problem that Athol has spent his life exploring and exposing and humanizing. To be seen for who you really are, and to be loved and honored for that. It's a beautiful message, and one we need to hear over and over again.”

The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek opens on Saturday, Nov. 7 and continues through Dec. 14, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.; and Mondays at 8 p.m. (On Sunday, Nov. 8, one performance only,  at 3 p.m.) Four preview performances take place on Friday, Oct. 30 at 8 p,m.; Sunday, Nov. 1 at  3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5 at 8 p.m.; and Friday, Nov. 6 at 8 p.m. Tickets range from Pay-What-You-Can at every Monday performance to $15–$34.95 on the weekends. The Fountain Theatre is located at 5060 Fountain Avenue (at Normandie) in Los Angeles.Secure, on-site parking is available for $5. The Fountain Theatre is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. For reservations and information, call (323) 663-1525or go to www.FountainTheatre.com.