Hello and Goodbye

This deceptively simple play is about a South African who is visited by his sister after a very long absence. Yes, he says; he and Dad have been getting along well enough, but no, she can’t talk to him because he’s asleep in the next room. Sister has really come home because she believes Dad has secreted 500 Pounds somewhere in the house, and she wants to make a deal with her brother; he can keep the house as his part of the heritage, if he’ll let her find and keep the money. Their memories work back and forth, and the brother tries to keep passions down so that father will not be awakened. But in the end the terrible truths of this family drama develop into an image of the disastrous plight of the entire nation of South Africa. Father is dead; the only inheritance they have is the land, the squalor and the misery.