When the great South African playwright Athol Fugard turns his focus to class and racial prejudice in America, trumpets should sound. However, what emerges from Have You Seen Us?, now premiering at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven under Gordon Edelstein's direction, is a thin, staticky mewl, like that of a faraway radio station playing a vaguely familiar, once-popular tune.

The show's focus is on Classics professor Henry Parsons (Sam Waterston, gamely affecting a South African accent but failing to achieve a native's ease), a cantankerous, mostly dry drunk who gets his jollies insulting Adela (Liza Colon-Zayas, who's given little to do beyond appearing stalwart), the Mexican waitress at the [...]