With lyrical grace, Fugard demonstrates the human struggle to transcend the treacherous injustices of history.

Sorrows and Rejoicings explores the legacy of Apartheid on two women—one white, the other Black—who on the surface seem to have little in common. What they do share is love for the same man: a white poet who is attached to the semi-desert Karoo land of South Africa. The drama moves between past and present, reliving the poet's despondent years in exile and his eventual return to a new South Africa, where he lives out his final years. His passing leaves the two women struggling to reconcile the secrets of his past, and their hopes for a post-Apartheid South Africa.