If there’s to be a central tragedy in one’s life, odds-on it’s bound up in the heartbreak of an unhappy family. In Athol Fugard’s seminal play, Master Harold and the Boys, which premiered in 1982 at the Yale Repertory Theatre before going on to an extended run at the Lyceum on Broadway, the playwright depicts a family’s dysfunction for the specific and fascinating angst all of its own, and also as a microcosm for the dark heart of the Family of Man as it rolled out in the decades of apartheid in South Africa.

First, let it be said that this rare treat of a play presentation, brought to us by a small troupe, Chimaera Physical Theater, with patronage from the Semans Art Fund and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, played on Island for one weekend only, on May 29 and 30 at the Unitarian Universalist Society — but let us hope that word-of-mouth will bring it back for many encores.

The play opens on a dreary, rainy afternoon in a tearoom in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1950, two years after apartheid made white supremacy over a black majority the rule of law. A few of the early reviews of Master Harold criticized the playwright for leaving this drastic situation unstated but, in hindsight, this is similar to saying that a drama set in a cabaret in Berlin in 1931 needs to make perfectly clear that Nazis roam the streets outside. On the contrary, Mr. Fugard’s sense of apartheid is as atmospheric and persistent as the looming Gothic weather.

It’s the weather that propels the story, for it drives away potential customers and throws still more intensely together the three characters, 17-year-old Hally (John Reese), whose parents own the tearoom, and the two middle-aged black employees, Sam (Jacobi Howard) and Willie (Gabe Brown), who’ve served as the young master’s synthetic but more enduring family members all his life. This marks the day, however, when adolescent demons, race, socio-politics, and the imminent return of actual, flawed family members force a pivotal moment when Hally may step over the invisible yet inevitable line that separates him forever from the only human beings who have truly loved him. It’s a line that has been, and continues to be, crossed in cultures of rigid caste divides, but to see the moment arise and beckon creates a more serious but similar ghastly suspense as that instant in a horror movie when the protagonist opens the door and descends the first step to the basement where the monster lurks.

On a seemingly more light-hearted and yet no less metaphorical note, Sam is coaching Willie for an upcoming ballroom dancing competition.Willie complains that his girlfriend and dance partner, Hilda, has slacked off in rehearsals. Sam confronts him with the paradox of his situation: The romance of perfect ballroom dancing, as epitomized by that glamorous pair, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, can only be accomplished by compatibility and perfect accord. Willie must stop beating Hilda if he expects her to glide across the polished floor with him. “You take the pleasure out of ballroom dancing,” Sam chides him. Translate kindness for pleasure and Sam has summed up the gist of elusive human happiness.

For his transgressions we put Willie at arm’s distance, although we also recognize that a vicious society has made a man of weak character a tyrant in his own small domain. Hally, as a volatile teen, is a work-in-progress but Sam, auto-didact, genuine shaman and wise man, is South Africa’s hope for the future. One wonders if Mr. Fugard presciently recognized Nelson Mandela’s stunning leadership and inspiration in the years to come.

Sam has stoked his intellect from books in Hally’s family’s library, thus Hally pompously compares himself to Tolstoy who famously schooled his serfs. In reality it is Sam who compares to Tolstoy in the author’s role as social reformer. Young Hally can only grow if he succeeds in holding on to this surrogate father figure as teacher, in effect the real master.

A call from Hally’s mother informing him she’s bringing home from the hospital his drunken, abusive and crippled father, sets the young man spinning towards self-destruction. Just as Willie strikes out at the one person who can help him achieve self-transformation, so does Hally test his rage with the man who has guided him with his school essays, comforted him through dark days and — their fondest memory — once fashioned for Hally a miracle kite out of bits of rags and junk paper that took to the skies with astounding grace.

Master Harold is directed with sensitivity and suppleness by Mollye Maxner, daughter of Joyce and Steve Maxner of West Tisbury. In Ms. Maxner’s young life as a dancer, choreographer, dramatist and director, she has received numerous grants, awards, scholarships, some of which have taken her as far afield as Taiwan, Turkey and Vienna. In the 2009–2010 season, Ms. Maxner will be a Kenan Fellow at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Gabe is the ultra-sophisticated opposite of his character Willie: The young actor has just completed his second year in drama at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He plays classical trumpet and recently performed as Count Orsino in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Mr. Howard is remarkable in that at the age of 25, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, he has slipped so effortlessly into the body language of a man on the fringes of advanced middle age and self-realization.

The gifted Mr. Reese as the youngest character is potentially the oldest member in the cast as a senior at the same university. His acting roles include Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Tuzenback in The Three Sisters.

Finally, the Unitarian Universalist Society Church on Main street in Vineyard Haven deserves praise for the lush setting it brings to this work of art. The dark old paneled walls, lofty ceilings, high windows and soft lamplight gave the St. George’s Park Tearoom in Port Elizabeth, South Africa a luster that could only be achieved with a million or two dollars on Broadway in New York.

Mollye & Company: Come back soon.