"The Road to Mecca" by Athol Fugard, which first appeared as a movie in 1992 starring Kathy Bates, opened last night at Roundabout's American Airlines Theatre. Unless you are a Fugard fan or a Rosemary Harris lover, you are going to be bored throughout this overlong, slow-moving play. In other words, unless you like the actors you might as well skip this depressing play about an older woman trying to be comforted by a younger woman, while a local minister tries to get that older woman to move into a retirement home.

Set in the region of New Bethesda in South Africa, "The Road to Mecca" is the name Mr. Fugard calls our little elderly widow's house. The tumultuous true story takes place in 1974 in the midst of rampant racism and the repressive days of apartheid. Carla Gugino, playing the younger woman Elsa Barlow, is a school teacher in Capetown who comes to visit Miss Helen, played by the terrific Rosemary Harris. The women spend the majority of the first act traipsing around what could be a ritzy Moroccan neighborhood. As the curtain falls we meet Marius, a bullying local minister played by Tony Award winner Jim Dale who, incidentally, is the voice heard on the Harry Potter audio books.

Dale spends most of the play trying to convince Rosemary that she can no longer take care of herself and has to move to Fair Acres, personally my favorite name for a nursing home. Now you should know, there is a fairly interesting climax at the end of "The Road to Mecca", and the second act will at least hold your attention.

If you are older, this play is going to seem depressing. And, I’m not sure the fine acting will keep back a tear or two from the ladies and men of a similar age.

The Road, whether to Mecca or to the less than intimate American Airlines Theater, was just too long for me to travel.