Boesman & Lena

Boesman & Lena Summary | Act 1 Summary

Boesman and Lena has only three characters: Boesman, Lena, and Outa, an old African. The stage remains empty until Boesman lumbers in, burdened with belongings such as an old mattress and blanket, a blackened paraffin tin, an apple box, a few cooking utensils and a few articles of clothing. He also drags a piece of corrugated iron in one hand. He is barefoot and wears shapeless grey trousers rolled up to his knees, an old shirt, a faded blazer and a cap on his head. He looks around the barren area and drops his bundles, himself falling to the ground.

Almost immediately, Lena appears, burdened much the same as Boesman, but without a mattress. She has a load of firewood under her arm, but she carries the rest of her bundle rigidly on her head. She, too, is barefoot and clothed in a baggy, lifeless dress. Lena and Boesman are each close to 50 years old.

Boesman looks at Lena with an unforgiving eye and a disdain that no one could miss. They have been walking for several hours, and although they are exhausted, they still have enough energy to blame each other for their predicament. Lena challenges Boesman as to why he had to push them so hard to get to such a miserable spot. Tomorrow will be equally as bad, so there really is no need to rush.

Lena drops to the ground with her bundles and begins absentmindedly picking the day's mud from between her toes. Then, she begins to survey her surroundings for the first time, noticing particularly the birds flying overhead. She is envious of their slow, gliding movements and wonders what it must feel like to be so free that even your shadow, being too heavy to carry along, you leave it on the ground. Boesman continues to watch Lena with unabashed hatred.

She tells him not to blame her for his unhappiness. Blame the white man and his bulldozers. Lena attempts to show the humor in this morning's scattering of people who were trying to save their possessions from the annihilation of the big machines. Boesman laughed at them earlier in the day, but he is not laughing now. According to Lena, all Boesman can think of now is how to build one more lean-to for their night's shelter.

Lena thinks only of the endless shanties and temporary shelters from too many nights. She also thinks of too many days of walking forward, backward and going nowhere. She feels as if she has had to put her whole life on her head and walked along with all her burdens upon her shoulders. She knows that she must have passed the ghost of her younger self on the roads many times before.

Lena suffers a fatigue so deep that she almost does not know who she is anymore. She is weary beyond words, emotionally and physically, and feels like an overused commodity. She feels like an old pot that leaks, a blanket that cannot even keep the fleas warm, anything, really, that is of no use anymore and needs to be thrown away. Lena wonders how a person would be able to dispose of her self once she has been used up. Her confusion is only exacerbated by the physical abuse she suffers from Boesman's fists, in addition to his verbal cruelty and indifference. He had hit her earlier this morning because she accidentally dropped three bottles that were intended for deposit, their only source of income. She tells him that she had met three boys and asked if their Mama needed help in the house. She tried to leave and work for this white woman, and he wonders why she did not go. Her shame increases even more when she tells him that the woman did not want her. Boesman does not want her either.

Lena cannot allow this insult to go unanswered, so she questions him again about their life and his choices. She asks why they have to stay in this place where they have been so many times before. Nothing good comes at this place, especially being so close to the river. She would rather go to any of the many other places they have been: Coega Veeplaas, Missionvale, Redhouse or Korsten. Lena continues to talk incessantly, and Boesman ignores her, continuing to build their shelter. Suddenly she realizes that maybe it will help if they have a drink, but Boesman will not rest until the shelter is prepared.

Changing quickly again she says that she is warm and happy, that she has been running all the way from Redhouse, to the next place, to the next place. She says that she is not as old as he thinks she is, and what really matters is that she is with him. However, no energetic teasing will coax Boesman out of his bad mood. He thinks she has been drinking and skeptically examines their two bottles of wine to see that they are still full.

Lena may as well be talking to herself as Boesman continues to be indifferent to her, and she falls into a reverie of all the places she has been, all the roads, all the mud between her toes and all the hungry nights. She wants to be someone else. Perhaps her name would have been different with a name like Rosie, Rose or Maria. If she were someone else, she would certainly leave Boesman. Boesman tells Lena that the only way she will leave is if he beats her, and he reminds her that the police will not do anything about it, just like the last time. They know how it is with people like them. Lena contends the police would care about his beating her if her name were Mary. She cautions him that he will go too far one day and end up swinging from a rope for what he will do to her.

Lena's daydream continues, and she cannot help but remember other times that were better. She remembers when Boesman had a job chopping wood for a Chinaman, and they lived in a room in his backyard—a real room with a real door. Boesman tells her to forget it, because now is the only time that matters anymore. Lena is angry, as she thinks, "I want my life. Where's it?"

Boesman tells Lena that her life is in the mud, where she is, now. It will be there in the mud tomorrow, the next day and the next. If she is still alive when he has had enough of it, she will still load up her things and walk to somewhere else.

Lena counts all her hardships aloud and continues to rage. There is never enough wine to let them sleep through the night. They wake up in the dark. The fire is out. This kind of life always feels empty. Even when he is awake, Boesman is not there for her. When she calls him, he never answers.

Boesman again challenges Lena to leave, when suddenly Lena sees a man in the bushes. Lena calls out to the man to join them despite Boesman's protests. Boesman does not want any trouble. An old black man comes out of the bushes and mutters something in the Xhosa dialect. They do not understand and ask if he speaks English or Afrikaans. He does not respond, and Lena encourages him to move closer to sit on the apple box to warm him by the fire.

Lena is still full of her day's trauma, and even though the old man does not understand her, she tells him that they were kicked out of their shanty home just this morning, that life is hard for brown people too. The old man mumbles in his language, which Lena does not understand. However, she continues to talk to him as if he did. Boesman leaves to scavenge for more materials as Lena launches into a diatribe about her life, when it was good, and when it was bad, mostly bad.

Boesman returns, learning that Lena has offered the old man a place to sleep with them for the night. Boesman wants the old man to leave and certainly does not want to share his shelter. Lena is adamant, though, and she takes her blanket and her food to share with the old man. Boesman watches them from the front of the shelter, refusing to eat or drink.