Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
Sizwe Banzi is Dead
May 11, 2010
Censorship and Police Interference
First preview for Sizwe Banzi is Dead is less than forty-eight hours away. Playwright Athol Fugard recounts a previous opening night of the play in a South African township:
The venue was St. Stephen’s Hall in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, and the occasion was our first public performance of Sizwe Banzi is Dead in a black township in South Africa. Date: September 1974. The play was already nearly two years old, but it was only after its West End run that we felt sufficiently protected by its overseas success to risk the hazards involved in a township performance. Up until then its life in South Africa had been restricted to private performances before invited audiences… circumstances which theoretically made us safe from censorship and police interference. I say theoretically because even under those circumstances there had been incidents. The last one had been just prior to our departure for London. Half an hour before a performance at The Space Theatre in Cape Town we found ourselves confronted by the Security Police and a warning that if we proceeded with the show we would be charged under the Group Areas Act. They claimed the performance would constitute ‘...occupation of a building in an area which had been zoned strictly for whites.’
As far as openings go, I would say that Court Theatre has it easy, except that most of us theater people actively dream of putting up work that invites censorship and police interference.
May 5, 2010
William Kentridge’s MINE (1991)
I don’t want to work on the mines. There is no money there. And it’s dangerous, under the ground. Many black men get killed when the rocks fall. You can die there.
Sizwe Banzi is Dead
One of my favorite artists, William Kentridge, is a South African film-maker who animates his own charcoal and pastel drawings. In Mine, Kentridge portrays the inhuman living conditions of black mine workers. Undesirable and underpaid as it was, mine work was a viable and common option for black South Africans who couldn’t find employment in the cities.
Sizwe Banzi is Dead opens May 13.
May 4, 2010
Disillusion
A lonely gear from the set of The Illusion retires house right as the set for Sizwe Banzi is Dead is loaded in. Sizwe Banzi is Dead opens May 13.
April 29, 2010
Sizwe Banzi is Dead
We’re two weeks away from premiering our fifth and final show of the season, Sizwe Banzi is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. The idea of presenting a Fugard play had been rattling around Court Theatre for many years, and it’s finally come to fruition under the direction of our Resident Artist, Ron OJ Parson. Court’s production is also the final installment in Chicago’s Fugard Fest, following Remy Bumppo’s The Island and Timeline Theatre Company’s ‘Master Harold’...and the Boys.
Sizwe Banzi is Dead was composed in 1972 by a white South African playwright in collaboration with two black South African actors. In creating the play, Kani and Ntshona would improvise large sections of the story, which Fugard would shape and tighten into a finished form. Devised largely from the experience of these three artists, the plot of Sizwe Banzi is Dead is concerned with the government-issued passbook, or “Book of Life,” which recorded and controlled the identity and movement of black South Africans under Apartheid. Those who could not produce their passbook on request were rendered ineligible for employment, kicked out of the white towns, and sometimes thrown into prison. Sizwe Banzi tells the story of one man who steals the passbook of a dead person and changes his identity in order to work and support his family.
Watch this preview for Sizwe Banzi is Dead shot by production dramaturg Kelli Marino and edited by Andrew Carter.
January 22, 2010
Fugard Chicago 2010
Fugard Chicago 2010 marks the rare occasion for Chicago audiences to encounter a wide breadth of work by South African playwright Athol Fugard. It begins with TimeLine Theatre Company’s production of “Master Harold” ...And the Boys (opened January 20), continues with Remy Bumppo’s The Island (opens January 27), and concludes with Court Theatre’s Sizwe Banzi is Dead (opens May 13). At Remy Bumppo’s thinkTalk blog, there’s a fabulous interview by Kelli Marino with each play’s director: James Bohnen, Jonathan Wilson, and our own Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson. Here’s a sample:
KM: How can these three Fugard works affect or reflect today’s society?
JW: All three, on one level or another, deal with racial issues. All three plays are having productions in Chicago, one of the most polarized cities in the nation. I think it would be most beneficial if we utilized the productions as a vehicle for discussing black/white relations in Chicago.
ROP: We always need to know where we came from to know where we are going. Of course racism still exists, and South African history can even reflect our own history. We have to make sure there are reminders so we will never repeat the atrocities that took place during apartheid.
JB: I think these shows collectively are a somber reminder that man will be inhumane in new ways and old ways, and that these stories must serve as sentinels, reminding us that evil is always dancing somewhere. But more importantly, these plays are a study, and reminder, in the power of a compassionate response within dire circumstances.
Read the full interview here.
Sizwe Banzi is Dead opens May 13 at Court Theatre
