Sizwe Banzi Is Dead

The apartheid regime that gave this 1972 collaborative piece its immediate political context has faded into history. But its critique of an authority that reduces a human life to marks on a passbook retains its relevance, as any contemporary observer of Arizona might agree. In Sizwe Banzi, white South African Fugard and his black collaborators, Kani and Ntshona, whose later collaboration The Island received a similarly inspired staging from Remy Bumppo this spring, created a richly varied, thoroughly theatrical meditation on identity and oppression.

The piece opens with a long monologue by photographer Styles (Johnson), narrating his many misadventures en route to owning his shop. It then veers into starker territory upon the arrival of a mysterious customer (Gilmore) who calls himself Robert Zwelinzima. In the course of detailing how the former Sizwe Banzi became Robert, during which Johnson takes on the role of Sizwe’s friend Buntu, the play offers both a telling glimpse at South Africa’s racial spin on totalitarianism and a more universal testament to friendship, improvisation and resistance.

Johnson invests Styles with a protean verve, but this production really comes to life with the entrance of Gilmore’s reticent, almost Beckettian Sizwe. Together, the duo seizes the Court space, glad-handing the audience during a drunken spree and vehemently debating the charged issues raised by Sizwe’s situation. The only false note is struck by Jack Magaw’s heavy-handed set, which, unlike the play itself, seems like a ’70s throwback.

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