Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
June 4, 2010
An Actor Prepares
Chiké Johnson, one of the two actors in Sizwe Banzi is Dead, writes about preparing for the play’s opening monologue, a daunting 45-minute piece of text written for one actor.
Preparing for the opening monologue of Sizwe Banzi is Dead was a process of removing myself from the world. It was just me and the play for close to three weeks and no one else. Apart from the occasional phone calls to my family and buying groceries, I was in my apartment working. I spent 6 or more hours at rehearsal working with Ron, Allen, Kelli, Aurelia and M. on characterization, history of the play, time period and accent. I would then come home and begin working on my own, making everything we covered over the course of the rehearsal day my own. Memorizing lines was a challenge, I am usually very good at text memorization, but this was a lot and for the first 15 pages to have no dialogue, it pushed me. Anyway, I covered page by page making sure that I was not just learning lines but letting each sentence pull me into the next so that by the end of the monologue there was a through line, meaning that Sizwe’s thoughts were not just random, but there was a reason behind what he was saying.
Learning the accent was nothing short of repetition. I started off with a general African accent and then M. [the dialect coach] came in and started working with specifics. Working with M. was fantastic and frustrating at times because sometimes I really could not here some things that I was saying. For example, my a’s: the South African ‘a’ is pronounced as an ‘ah’ sound, while we have more of an ‘a, e’ sound when we pronounce it. For weeks I had no idea that I was not saying ah until we actually started previews and then it clicked. Once you can hear it then you can begin to change the sounds in your mind then let them flow through your mouth. Another thing was actually learning some words in some of the native languages. This was difficult for me because some of the words used in Zulu have no equivalent sound in English so I couldn’t find a reference point in my brain to look back on or guide me. I had to learn it from scratch, so to speak.
The are a couple of reason’s I think this play is relevant for today. One, Arizona, making people carry passbooks in this country is scary. If we can let this happen in this country in 2010, there is no telling what the powers may be will come up with next. Fortunately we don’t all live in Arizona, but this law will eventually have an affect on all of us if we are not careful and fight such a horrible idea. Two, oppression is timeless and colorless we cannot fail to remember what has and is happening all over the world. This my way of saying remember what was, this our history and it must not be forgotten, it is our guide.
Sizwe Banzi is Dead runs Wednesday through Sunday until June 13.
2 Responses to An Actor Prepares
Sizwi was a profound play that could have been carved out of today’s news! The fact that it is a play that has been around for decades validates its relevance. It’s a reminder to us of what can happen when people do nothing.
Keep up the good work!
By Gwendolyn Beam on June 16, 2010 at 1:59 pm
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I first saw Sizwe Banzi is Dead in the 70’s. Although it left an indeligle impact, I remembered little of the dialogue or details. The recent Court production was engaging, well directed, and timeless. I returned to see it, because I KNEW it was worth a second viewing - my today’s mind needed to understand what I had seen so long ago. The play may be even more relevant today, because, in some ways, the world has made little progress on the issues the play explores. Yes, apartheid has been officially abolished, but so many Africans throughout the diaspora still live under similar conditions. The official passbook may be gone, but opportunity and prosperity are beyond their reach. They are separated from family and labor under oppresive conditions. The chasm between those who have overcome adversity and those struggling to achieve has become greater. The demands of the script and the actors’ exceptional delivery of line after line is a metaphor for the perserverance, dedication and committment demanded of South Africans then and now. I applaud the play, its cast, directors and all involved. It was a worthwhile endeavor that hopefully was as fulfililng for Court as it was for me.
By Rosalind Harris on June 15, 2010 at 5:02 pm