Injustice and Identity in Sizwe Banzi

The South African classic celebrates the blessing of life in the death of Sizwe Banzi.

GEORGE TOWN, NOVEMBER 12, 2015 – This weekend the diaspora will be represented at the Studio Theatre as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Harquail Theatre. Director Philip A. Burrows, actors Dion Johnson and Mark Humes and Stage Manager Nello Lambert, the Ringplay Theatre contingent from the Bahamas, will present Athol Fugard’s Sizwe Banzi is Dead – a script that continues to tug at audiences’ conscience yet ease our pain using humour and hope. Locals and visitors to the Shakespeare in Paradise Festival in Nassau two years ago applauded the group’s presentation of the classic.

“This play was relevant at the time it was written and it continues to be relevant today. We are pleased to have Ringplay Theatre in Cayman to present it,” says Muttoo.

Sizwe Banzi is Dead is set in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1972. It is the height of the apartheid era and black South Africans’ movements controlled in every way possible. They are segregated and confined to townships, shanty town-like settlements outside the cities, and they must carry state-issued identity passbooks, which allow them to travel, work, and live outside those townships.

A photographer named Styles explains how he came to pursue his dream of helping black South Africans hold on to their identities. Under apartheid, the ruling white South African minority receives the benefits of full citizenship, while the black majority exists under a system that deprives them of the vote, controls where they live, gives them permission to work, delineates not only who they marry but with whom they can fall in love, tells them where they go to school, and defines what they can ultimately become.
For Styles, identity is captured in the image. Styles uses photographs he takes of his fellow blacks to help them remember who they are. When a customer enters his studio to have a photograph taken to send back to his family in one of the townships, what happens between the two men will change one of them forever.

Sizwe Banzi is Dead will take place on November 13th, 14th (8pm) and 15th at (6pm) at Harquail Studio Theatre. Tickets are for $25 (adults) and $20 (seniors) and are available now from Foster’s Food Fair (Strand), Funky Tang’s, Health Care Pharmacy (Grand Harbour) and Cultural Foundation offices. Reservations can be made by calling 949-5477 or by emailing [email protected].

SIzwe Banzi

ABOUT THE WRITERS
Athol Fugard (1932-) is a white South African who spoke out against the system of apartheid (1948-1994). Sizwe Banzi is Dead was inspired by his work as a clerk in the pass-law courts, where he daily witnessed black South Africans being imprisoned for not having their passbooks in correct order. Sizwe Banzi is Dead was devised in collaboration with John Kani and Winston Ntshona, who played Styles and Sizwe Banzi. The world premiere of the play took place on October 8, 1972 at the Space Theatre, Cape Town, South Africa. Its subsequent British premiere won a London Theatre Critics Award for the Best Play of 1974, and it was nominated for a 1974/75 Tony Award for Best Play and Best Direction of a Play, with Kani and Ntshona jointly winning Tony Awards for Best Actor.

Other notable other works from Fugard include Master Harold … and the boys, The Blood Knot, The Island and Tsotsi (the film version directed by Gavin Hood won an Academy Award in 2005) among others.
Maim Image: Bahamian actors Mark Humes (Sizwe Banzi) and Dion Johnson (Styles/Buntu)

For a full calendar of Harquail Theatre’s 30th Anniversary events, visit www.artscayman.org/calendar.