The opens with a stark stage direction: "A desolate stretch of the Swartkops mudflats." There is no scenery to hide behind. The setting is as bare as the lives of its protagonists.
Lena is the linguist of the play. Her monologues are torrential outpourings of grief, humor, and accusation. She interacts with the mud, the reeds, and the silent Outa. For an actress, the challenge is to avoid self-pity. Fugard wrote Lena as a survivor. Even when she is beaten, she keeps talking, asking, "God? Are you listening?" She forces the universe to witness her suffering.
The explores how oppression breeds oppression. Boesman is beaten down by the white authorities ("the baas"), but rather than rebel
Review: After apartheid, who are 'Boesman and Lena'? - Pulse Kenya
Written in 1969 during the height of South Africa’s apartheid regime, Boesman and Lena is a raw, two-hander (plus one silent, tragic figure) that strips theatre down to its barest essentials: a bag of rags, a wheelbarrow, a muddy riverbank, and two human beings trying not to shatter.