Disch reviews a 1992 New York production of Boesman and Lena, directed by Fugard himself. The critic lauds the playwright's work for its powerful depiction of "the horror of homelessness and vagrancy so tellingly."

At the same time that the Manhattan Theatre Club is offering Sight Unseen in its Stage II space, the larger Stage I is offering a revival of Boesman and Lena, which is directed by its author, Athol Fugard. The two acts are presented without intermission, and for once this practice seems justified by the resulting tautness. Too often, eliminating intermission is simply a way to prevent the audience from escaping.

Boesman and Lena, which premiered in South Africa in 1969, presents one desolate night in the life of its title characters, who have just witnessed the destruction of the shantytown they'd lived in and have no other home than a featureless wasteland, represented in this...