The setting is Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It is 1963. Piet Bezuidenhout, a thoughtful and decent Afrikaner disillusioned with liberal politics, has failed as a farmer, and has turned to collecting and classifying aloes, tough, cactuslike, liliaceous plants that can survive in hostile environments. His English/South African wife Gladys has undergone electric-shock treatment for a nervous breakdown resulting from the confiscation of her diaries by the secret police, but still suffers from a “desperate apprehension.” Their friend Steve Daniels, a Coloured (a person of mixed racial blood) ex-political activist just released from prison, is preparing to leave with his family for England on a one-way exit permit. The final meeting of these three characters, each of whom is engaged in a struggle with fear or guilt explodes with tense and tragic revelations of suspicion and desolation.
A Lesson from Aloes was first performed at the Yale Repertory Theater in the spring of 1980, starring James Earl Jones, Maria Tucci, and Harris Yulin. The original production came to Broadway in November of the same year, and was proclaimed one of the major dramatic events of the season.
- Title: A Lesson from Aloes
- Playwright: Athol Fugard
- Publisher: Random House
- Place: New York
- Year: 1981
- Book Club Edition
- First Edition
- Photographs by Gerry Goodstein
- Cover by Dick Adelson
- Length: 83pp
- Dimensions: 5.75” x 8.5”
- Condition: Dustjacket has some visible wear, scuffs and smudges and with some light cracking and at the spine. The orange paper covered boards are in pristine condition. The binding is tight, and the pages are clean--no folds, tears, or extraneous marks.