A South African diamond in Cornelius

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Up the road in Cornelius, there are just two weekends left to discover a jewel of a production at The Warehouse on Westmoreland Road. The neat little storefront theater is presenting Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca, an homage to untutored artist Helen Martins – and the transformative power of her visionary artworks.

Divina Cook plays Helen at her famed Owl House in the arid wasteland of the Great Karoo. Having lost her visionary gleam, she has sent out a distress call to her British friend Elsa Barlow, who drives hundreds of miles from Cape Town, fearing that Helen will take her own life. Elsa, played with a plucky priggishness by Tonya Bludsworth, finds that the threats facing Helen are actually two-fold. Helen has not only lost her artistic spark, she may also lose the artwork that has become the purpose of her life. Rev. Marius Byleveld is on his way to get Helen’s consent to move out of the Owl House and into a church-sponsored old age home.

Outside, we’re told, the vegetable garden has been replaced by an armada of statuary – all of this Camel Yard facing eastward to Mecca. Inside, with garish colored walls covered with cut glass and glitter, we can see that Helen has fashioned a Mecca of her own, one that becomes magical by candlelight. While Marius views the place as a pagan junkyard and an affront to Christianity, Elsa sees the beauty and the wonder of what Helen has achieved.

Tom Scott brings a crusty propriety to the role that Fugard wrote for himself, making Marius a caring adversary capable of donning the dignity of spiritual shepherd and impulsively tossing it aside. While Elsa is concealing secrets of her own, Bludsworth shows us that she is young enough to be wounded and repelled by Helen’s secretiveness at precisely the moment that her aged friend needs her most.

The show still belongs to Cook in her amazingly chameleonic portrait of Helen. Spanning the range between dark despair and crazed enthusiasm, Cook is a resigned septuagenarian near death’s door one minute and a gleeful child the next. It’s a brave performance, and director Louise Robertson deserves praise above all else for helping Cook to see how delicious the risk could be.

Charlotte Repertory Theatre presented a memorable The Road to Mecca back in 1991, scarcely four years after Fugard brought his own version to Spoleto. The Warehouse’s production doesn’t match the technical magic of the Rep’s when we dim to candlelight, but the visual arts design by Lee Ann Harrison is quite polished in its evocation of Helen’s inspired eccentricity, and all three performances reminded me of the treasures this script holds for the actors and the audience.

Seating capacity is fairly tight at The Warehouse. Call 704-619-0429 to make sure you don’t miss out.