"The tense conversation that ensues sometimes stumbles over expositional passages detailing the contrasting fates of farmers in South Africa and Zimbabwe. And while Jonathan’s eloquence is neatly explained by his passion for words, some of his speeches have the whiff of the prepared lecture about them. But the impassioned performance helps to animate the staid patches in the writing."
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"The overall tone of The Painted Rocks is one of sincerity. But in this play, Mr. Fugard’s bite has lost some teeth....Fugard spends much of his stage time on exposition. Most of it is familiar and as such it loses the impact that he intends. There is so much exposition that the first act is hardly needed, because most of what transpires is reviewed in the second act."
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"Fugard’s play, performed by an excellent cast of four, derives much of its initial power from simplicity. There is great joy in witnessing the artist commit himself to paint...But much of this consists of rehashing and explaining what was clear enough in the play’s first half. Mabusa’s struggle not to capitulate is already moving; it doesn’t require such recapitulation."
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"A play like The Painted Rocks, meant no doubt to be timeless, seems timebound instead...This is not to say that Fugard’s traditional works can’t be powerful, but their power is, to my mind, not always sufficiently theatrical, especially when they approach his great subject...There is not much room for movement, dramatic or otherwise, in a world where whites cannot see the lives of their victims...Thus the gun. And thus, less desperately, the excellent performances of the four-person cast."
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"Fugard has staged his show, and while he has not always been the best executor of his own work, that is not the case with this magisterial, exquisitely paced production...It is a play that belongs on Broadway."
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"Fugard’s work is one of imagination. His play isn’t ground-breaking, but his script has plainspoken eloquence and the cast is first-rate. You’d have to have a heart of granite not to be moved watching empathy tentatively bloom in a garden of rocks."
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"Watching the dead rock come to life is as thrilling for us as it is for Nukain...Had the play ended at this point, it would still leave the audience shaken. But in the second act of his carefully built play, Fugard broadens the meaning of Nukain’s masterpiece by placing that powerful symbol of a man’s human dignity in a modern-day context."
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"An intimate theatrical gem...The play becomes a bit stilted and didactic, in which the post-apartheid themes are stated far too explicitly. But it's deeply moving nonetheless...The production has its flaws — the staging is too leisurely, and not all of the dialogue rings true. But the work is a worthy addition to his distinguished canon."
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