In an interview with NPR, 81-year-old South African playwright Athol Fugard discusses his new play, The Shadow of the Hummingbird, in which a bird-watching grandfather shares a story with his grandson “about seeing birds in a way that moved him spiritually. That moment gets to the heart of the play — a grandfather urging his grandson to keep hold of his innocence.”
Fugard noted: “In the course of acquiring all this so-called knowledge, I’ve lost something. I’ve lost contact with something that I had. I wonder about myself now. I haven’t shouted ‘Hallelujah!’ for a long time, you know? Can I do it once more? I would like to believe that.”