This past weekend, students got the chance to enter the main stage theater, only to see that it had been transformed beyond recognition. The limited seating in the student-built risers focused around an intimate, little back room somewhere in rural South Africa at the height of apartheid. Statements After An Arrest Under the Immorality Act by Athol Fugard took Mac students out of St. Paul for a little over an hour and into a world behind closed doors and drawn curtains, right into the heat of a forbidden relationship between a black man, Errol, and a white woman, Frieda.

As we move within the dusty darkness of Frieda’s secret room behind her library, we witness a seemingly typical couple that flirts and fights, nearly nude the entire production, retreating and moving forward, contemplating life’s questions and wondering about the future. Of course, this couple is constrained by being social outcasts, having to hide, having to live only within a few feet of bare space, but their movement through such limited space is surprisingly synchronized and harmonious. They are vulnerable and connected, against all odds.

However, as we move later into the night, two police officers break into the library, raid the back room and flash their cameras on the lovers, breaking the darkness—Frieda and Errol are caught breaking the law. The synchronization in their movement is broken. Errol and Frieda retreat to opposite corners of the room and they testify, forced to justify a love that had been real within the confines of the room, but is seen as criminal on the outside.

The two are forced to wonder if they fully exist, now stripped of their cozy safe place and stripped of each other. Beyond the accents and a time period and place that all seem foreign to Mac students, this beautifully emotional performance allows us to think about the social constraints and restrictions we witness in our culture today when it comes to love and romance. This small, intimate and riveting cast helped us better understand injustice beyond our familiar cultural boundaries through the lens of these powerful characters. Congratulations to everyone who made this story come to life, especially guest director and Mac alum James Williams ’77. They all helped to continue a dialogue and to not let histories be forgotten.