Log In

Reset Password

Opening up Africa to Bermuda

Creating new identity: 'Sizwe Bansi Is Dead' cast at City Hall Theatre. Pictured are (front) Matthew Amend as Sizwe Bansi and Niyl Corer Jr.

A compelling play that touches on the ordinary man in a bygone South African era opened last night at the City Hall Theatre.

The play, 'Sizwe Banzi is Dead', runs until Saturday.

Matthew Amend plays Sizwe Bansi while international actor and lecturer Niyi Coker Jr. acts in the roles of both Styles and Buntu.

The play details the lives of these three individuals, how they survive, interact, and ultimately attempt to succeed as illegal immigrants in an inclement climate of apartheid.

Mr. Amend, Mr. Coker and spokesman Charles Vanderpuye talked to about their roles in the play or bringing the production to the Island.

Sizwe Banzi is Dead is a play by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona.

Hailing from St. Louis, Missouri, was Mr. Amend and of his role as Sizwe Bansi, he said: "My role takes place in South Africa during the 70s, in the apartheid era.

"My character¿ has to have had a permit, which says where you work and what type of work you are going to do."

The character Sizwe Bansi originally lived in King William's Town, which was described as a very small town where the work is very dry.

"He has a wife and four children to support," explained Mr. Amend.

"So in order for him to best supply for his family he has to get out of town and find a job. So he kind of branches off, which is illegal, and he gets caught in a raid, they capture him and they put a stamp in his book to report back. But my character is illiterate, so he doesn't report back."

His character then stays with Buntu in Port Elizabeth, and is attempting to find employment.

"But Buntu reveals to Sizwe that he was supposed to report back three days before and if he goes back then there is a good chance that he can get caught," said the actor.

"Also if he goes back then he will go back empty-handed to his family.

"So there is a question of whether he should stay there and try to find a job and maybe get caught because of this permit.

"In dealing with that, Buntu tries to elevate me and takes me to a bar. The play itself correlates to a lot of things that are going on racial injustice, racism, the plight of the immigrant, the plight of the illegal worker trying to support his family.

"And if you come to see this play then, at best, then I hope that it gets a dialogue started, gets people to think, because once you get people to think then that's how things open up and that is how ignorance is killed and that's how people change things.

"At least that is what the play means to me and what I have gotten out of it."

Within the play itself, Mr. Amend's character has to create a new identity for himself. He found that the permit is more of a person than he is.

"You are just a number. He doesn't feel like a man.

"The whole point of the play 'Sizwe Bansi is Dead' is that my character has to learn to self-sacrifice a piece of himself to become the man he needs to be to support his family.

"And in Africa your name is very high and in order for him to give up his name just to make a living is a very big deal."

Playing Styles, the photographer, and Buntu, the somewhat jaded assistant, is Mr. Coker.

"Styles the photographer talks about creating a room of dreams and it is a situation that what you have gotten is plastic surgery, where people in a situation of apartheid are essentially trying to recreate their image to kind of accentuate their humanity, despite the fact that all around them is chaos," he said.

During the second half of 'Sizwe Bansi is Dead', the character of Buntu essentially guides Sizwe.

"He guides him into finding himself and in accepting that he would have to kill his own identity in order to survive in this system," revealed Mr. Coker.

"And because Sizwe Bansi comes with values, correct values, and because he is so pure in his thinking it just amazes this city boy, Buntu, who knows all the nooks and crannies and survival tactics.

"Buntu is way past that I don't want to say that he is jaded, but in some ways he probably is, because he is very cynical about everything going on around him and if you come with it, he will take it and make the best out of it." 'Sizwe Bansi is Dead' spokesman Charles Vanderpuye explained his reasons for putting on the production.

"The point is that the African community here has been growing quite rapidly and we have already had the opportunity to get together," he said.

"At the moment, we know we have about 200 Africans on the Island, but we have about 100 on our mailing list.

"So we want to get them together and let our presence also be felt in Bermuda and we think the way of doing such a thing is to organise a play and put part of that money through for a charity which we have adopted and that is the Women's Resource Centre.

"This is just the beginning and in time we hope to put on a few more things. It is also to open Africa up to Bermudians, who don't normally go on vacation there, and we think that by getting together than we can let them know what is in Africa."

And then it can come a time when they say, 'I am going to Nigeria, or South Africa, or Morocco, Algeria.' It won't just be, 'I am going to Africa and you don't know where you are going."

@EDITRULE:

Community of Africans in Bermuda, in collaboration with the University of Missouri, St. Louis, under the patronage of Dr. Femi Bada

Produced by Ayo Johnson and Rotimi Martins Directed by Niyi Coker, Jr Featuring Dennis Lebby and Matthew Amend

City Hall Theatre

Wednesday, July 25 to Saturday, July 28

8 pm (in addition to a Matinee on Saturday at 1 p.m)