An Actor Puts His Nation's Mixed Emotions Onstage

December 30, 2002
An Actor Puts His Nation's Mixed Emotions Onstage
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

 
JOHANNESBURG, Dec. 29 - The dark theater is empty, its plush seats vacant. As 
the impatient, jostling crowd waits outside the auditorium doors, the famous 
actor prepares himself.

In his dressing room, John Kani massages his forehead and rubs his face, 
kneading, molding, changing. He closes his eyes and slowly transforms himself 
into an ordinary man - no easy task for an actor with such an extraordinary 
life.

Mr. Kani, who won a 1975 Tony Award for his Broadway portrayal of a man 
battered by apartheid, was hounded for years by the white government for 
exposing on the stage the ugliness of all-white rule. Today, he is the 
director of the Market Theater, chairman of the National Arts Council, author 
of one of the most striking dramas to emerge since apartheid ended in 1994 and 
successful beyond his wildest imaginings.

Yet in his new play about post-apartheid South Africa, Mr. Kani, 59, chose not 
to write a simple story of celebration. Instead, his drama, "Nothing but the 
Truth," offers a funny and painful glimpse of black people navigating a 
remarkably complicated world.

He captures what is rarely captured on stage, the mixed emotions that have 
accompanied the end of white rule - the jubilation at once-unimaginable 
opportunities, the simmering disillusionment with the slow pace of change and 
the private agonies of a people still aching from old wounds.

Mr. Kani stars as Sipho, a 63-year-old chief assistant librarian in Port 
Elizabeth, a father who loves books, the new feel of freedom and the easy and 
unexpected camaraderie with white colleagues.

After three decades in which he has been passed over by white officials, 
Sipho's white boss has finally recommended that he succeed her. But his hopes 
are dashed when the black government selects an inexperienced anti-apartheid 
campaigner for the post. Sipho begins to wonder whether South Africa has truly 
changed and whether he will ever escape the pain of the past.

He still lives in the black townships. The white operatives who killed blacks 
during white rule are still free. He never made peace with his brother, who 
protested apartheid and died in exile. Nor has he come to terms with the death 
of his son at the hands of the apartheid-era police.

Sipho's struggle reflects Mr. Kani's own. His brother Xolile was killed by the 
police in the 1980's, something he still battles to accept. He also 
understands the disappointment of the black majority, who remain poor and 
frustrated eight years after the end of apartheid.

While "Nothing but the Truth" celebrates the promise of freedom, it also holds 
a warning for the black government: Don't rest on your laurels, and don't 
forget the small people who brought you to power.

"We need to heal," said Mr. Kani, leaning back in his chair at the Market 
Theater. "Eight years of a new South Africa is not going to create a community 
that is absolutely happy - happy, no."

"I still miss my brother," he added. "I still feel his death was a waste. I'm 
still struggling with forgiving.

"I'm still not prepared to forget."

He continued: "This play was an attempt to take that pain and place it 
somewhere in my heart where it settles comfortably and I can go back to it 
without anger, hatred and bitterness."

His beard is turning silver now, but Mr. Kani is still the formidable actor 
who thrilled audiences when he starred in the plays of Athol Fugard, South 
Africa's most prominent playwright.

The productions included " `Master Harold' . . . and the Boys" and "Playland." 
Mr. Kani and Winston Ntshona collaborated with Mr. Fugard in the writing of 
the "The Island" and "Sizwe Banzi is Dead," for which Mr. Kani and Mr. Ntshona 
won best actor awards.

Back then, Mr. Kani was harassed and jailed by the South African government 
and stabbed by its emissaries for continuing his work. These days, he peers 
through wire-rimmed glasses at a changed world.

His office sits in the heart of what was once white Johannesburg. He lives in 
a white neighborhood, not in the townships. He no longer fears tape recorders 
or tapped phones. He is no longer an enemy of government; he is a government 
partner, directing government financing to new and promising playwrights.

Mr. Kani says the government deserves much credit for building houses and for 
bringing electricity and running water to thousands of blacks for the first 
time. But he says the governing African National Congress must speed the pace 
of change if it hopes to stay in power.

"We've got the right to vote, but what does it mean?" Mr. Kani asked. "People 
now want to have the right to a job, the right to education, the right to 
medical services.

"We need to accelerate this process of change," he added. "Otherwise there 
will come a time when the millions of this country will feel that they have 
not yet benefited from this new dispensation, and that would build the biggest 
opposition to our government. You're playing with a volcano, and it's 
rumbling."

His new play has received rave reviews in local newspapers. Business Day 
called it "deeply moving." Hundreds of theatergoers, white and black, have 
flocked to packed performances at the Market Theater, which often struggles 
for an audience because of its inner-city location.

The show, which continues its run next month, has been hailed as one of the 
latest contributions to the growing post-apartheid art scene. Mr. Fugard, in a 
telephone interview from Dublin, said the play was also an important step for 
Mr. Kani, who has starred in several revivals of his apartheid-era roles.

"I'd like to think of this play as a big act of liberation on John's side," 
Mr. Fugard said. "I felt he was keeping himself shackled to the past. For John 
to have come up with a new piece of work is good news, I think, for himself 
and for South African theater."

Many critics have lamented the dearth of fine post-apartheid art in the early 
years, but Mr. Kani said playwrights needed time to make sense of the new 
reality.

"I think 1994 landed on us with a huge crash; I don't think we were ready," 
Mr. Kani said. "We had to take it in, what was going on. It had to settle. Our 
people were going through changes. We needed that time."

Today, he says, many playwrights are exploring new themes like the 
environment, xenophobia, AIDS and reconciliation - not only reconciliation 
between blacks and whites, but also between blacks who have wounded one 
another, a theme examined in "Nothing but the Truth."

Most nights, the crowds gather inside the theater lobby here, waiting for the 
auditorium doors to open. Some scramble for tickets to this show, the season's 
hottest. Backstage, Mr. Kani stares into the mirror. So much has changed.

But as he kneads his face, preparing for his performance, he suddenly feels 
the familiar butterflies fluttering in his stomach and knows he is right at 
home.

"I am where I belong," he said.

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Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company