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| John Kani, Winston Ntshona. |
John Kani and Winston Ntshona, the South African Black
actors who “devised” this play with playwright Athol Fugard and also starred in
it, were very successful in their New York season of repertory, which included Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, another of their
collaborative creations. Both plays came to Broadway after being hailed at
London’s Royal Court Theatre.
The Island takes
place on Robben Island, a South African maximum security prison for Black
political prisoners. The actors played convicts with their own first names.
Winston, incarcerated for life, and John for 10 years, have been
cellmates for three years. Their days are filled with grueling, meaningless
tasks, and the play’s realistic depiction of their inhuman suffering was
painful to watch. At one point, for example, one man washes a tick out of his
friend’s eye with urine. The deep relationship of these men is meticulously
drawn, especially after the news arrives that John is going to be released shortly.
They realize that Winston will have to go on without him.
Much of the action deals with the men’s preparations for a
crude version of Sophocles’ Antigone,
which they intend to present at the prison show. One plays Creon, the other
Antigone, with a homemade costume that looks ludicrous, but is quickly
forgotten when the character’s words are spoken. The political point of the
Greek tragedy regarding the power of the state versus the independence of its
citizens is made with overwhelming force.
The Island’s early
scenes struggled with longueurs, but before long engrossed its audience in what
Clive Barnes termed “the most terrifyingly realistic play of prison life I have
ever seen.” Martin Gottfried described it as “Delicately felt, and written with
a plain and human eloquence, . . . brushed with Fugard’s unique poetic
naturalism.”
Kani and Ntshona acted with a highly veristic technique that
almost seemed non-acting. Gottfried called their work “moving and powerful,”
and Jack Kroll said they were “actors of extraordinary range, power and
sensitivity.”
The play’s honors will be listed under the entry for Sizwe Banzi Is Dead.
