A guard ensured that audience members filed into the auditorium on the correct side of a rope barrier, according to colour. The generally pallid capacity audience made this difficult to carry to its logical conclusion but the point was well made, and it was clear that pertinent parts of the dialogue were directed pointedly to the white or non-white sides of the room.
This is a piece written almost like two separate plays that both deliver a similar message about freedom and identity. The first 40 of its 100 minutes are a monologue from a photographer named Styles, who proudly tells the story of how he fought to own this tiny studio in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth. Tonderai Munyevu plays this part with mesmerising stage presence and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy. He has Styles characterise numerous other players in his tale, including his own elderly father and some twenty-odd members of a family who arrive to have a group photograph taken. Can there really be this many ways to say “Cheese”? Munyevu’s storytelling is utterly captivating and in the muggy heat of the studio (it was still thundering outside the theatre) it was impossible not to be transported by him.
Styles’ narrative is interrupted by a knocking at his door and in comes a man claiming to be Robert Zwelinzima, although he seems strangely unsure of his name. He parts with his money and poses for a photograph, and at a click of the shutter he becomes frozen in time in this image.
And so to the other half of the story, in which we flash back to discover how Sizwe Banzi has been persuaded reluctantly to trade his identity for his freedom. He is played by Sibusiso Mamba, while Tonderai Munyevu remains to play his friend, Buntu.
Banzi has a stamp in his passbook that imposes requirements he cannot fulfil, and he cannot remain in Port Elizabeth. All he wants is to retain his dignity as a man – to work and to provide for his family – but there seems no way out of the dilemma. Not, that is, until Buntu literally stumbles across a dead man in the street, behind a bar where they have been drinking. This man is Robert Zwelinzima, and Buntu manages to talk Banzi into surrendering his identity in order to assume ownership of dead man’s passbook. Somehow though it now feels more as though the passbook owns him.
The bright, energetic, optimistic world of part one in Styles’ studio contrasts starkly with the second part’s slower paced and much darker atmosphere, but the ever present spectre of apartheid looms heavy over both. What does a man have to do to be able to own himself?
Sibusiso Mamba combines a gentle dignity with determination and despair and his outrage at having to surrender his very identity is both terrifying and heartbreaking.
Matthew Xia is familiar with the Playhouse’s Studio and he has used the space to maximum advantage, with his perfectly cast duo of actors giving him first rate performances. Hyemi Shen’s lock-up garage of a set is a box of magic and there are some beautiful details of theatricality in the staging, including the portrayal of the deceased Zwelinzima and the arrival of lunch.
Lighting by Ciaran Cunningham and sound design by Richard Hammerton complete the atmosphere.
Sizwe Banzi is Dead was originally written and devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani & Winston Ntshona and presented first in Cape Town and then in London, and over four decades on it remains as fresh as paint in this masterful new production from Eclipse Theatre Company and the Young Vic.
This is the end of a six venue tour following its opening run, and it closes here in Liverpool on Saturday 14th June. At the time of writing every performance is sold out, but please do check with the box office for returns to avoid missing out.
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