…is a play worth seeing if you happen to be in New York this week.
South Africans John Kani and Winston Ntshona first put on Sizwe Banzi Is Dead in Cape Town in 1972. They were detained for their artistic daring, yet continued to defy the rules of apartheid play by play, so to speak.
The duo composed the play with Afrikaner Athol Fugard, who in 1985 was named by Time magazine as the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world.
35 years later the actor-playwrights reprise their roles at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). It will also be the very last time these two actors will ever play these roles.
From the program,
Sizwe Banzi Is Dead tells the story of Sizwe Banzi (Winston Ntshona), a rural black worker who leaves his home in King William’s Town to seek work in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He is, however, ordered to leave the district because he lacks the proper permit. With assistance from his friend Buntu (John Kani), he trades his name for a number and begins life as a dead man, wreaking havoc with his identity and sense of right and wrong.
