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Drama > Sizwe Banzi is Dead > Flashcards

Sizwe Banzi is Dead Flashcards

1
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A
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2
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Origins and Background

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  • Athol Fugard, John Kani, Winston Ntshona
  • Effects and consequences of pass laws
  • The serpent players (mixed race theatre group banned in white areas)
  • Black men from the SP were arrested, 3 sent to R. Island
  • John Kani: Worked at Ford Motor Company; Kani and Ntshona acted as Fugard’s “servants” to bypass apartheid laws
  • SP GOALS: To create art that reflects the daily lives of black people in SA
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3
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SOPOCO

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  • Apartheid - system of legalised racial oppression and segregation
  • White minority in power
  • Black homelands given self governing status (empty political gesture)
  • Black resistance (Biko - Black identity and dignity w/ BCM)
  • Black trade unions - strikes and demands for better orking conditions
  • Passlaws, dompas, to segregate the population
  • SHARPEVILLE
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4
Q

Intentions

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  • Incite political action - a protest against pass laws
  • Raise awareness (SP)
  • Create solidarity and a sense of community
  • Resistance to dehuminisation - communicates strong message of identity - BCM
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5
Q

Workshopping

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  • Township plays by SP enabled collaborative creative process
  • Democraic, immidiate, topical, relevant, varied
  • Acccessible (did not require literacy)
  • Poor Theatre approach to staging - no complex staging needed; cost effective
  • Bypassing censorship: single master script
  • Flexible lines with a single core plot
  • Documents history, shatters apartheid propaganda and perception
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6
Q

Style and Genre: Protest Theatre

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  • Protest against political order of Aprtheid
  • Creates voice
  • Encourages audience to re-evaluate thinking
  • Displays frustration of those represented on stage
  • Focuses on what should be unlearnt
  • Theatre for CHANGE
  • Satirical, angry and defiant tone
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7
Q

Poor Theatre in SBID

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  • Intimate a/a relationship
  • Stripping of spectacle
  • Pure theatre experience
  • Elevates actor as Actor God
  • PT staging approach
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8
Q

Monologues: Improv and transitions

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  • Stylized monologue
  • Opening monologue (improvised) reading and commenting on a newspaper, topical issues, relevant (indicates themes)
  • Styles’ life story and opinions reflects the results of Apartheid and how it has shaped his mind to think
  • Sizwe’s letter to his wife = transitions story
  • Buntu’s monologue: “Am I not a man?” - message of identity, dehumanisation, and the individual
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9
Q

Township Theatre

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  • Townships used for preformances
  • Vibrant, dynamic, energetic, didactic
  • Audience = engaged
  • Ranges of ages
  • Commentary from audience
  • Addressed audience directly
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10
Q

Setting

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  • Time: 1970’s
  • Place: New Brighton, PE
  • 3 locations: Photo studio, Buntu’s house, Streets
  • Each setting emphasises the limitaions of movement of black people.
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11
Q

Structure

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  • No divisions of acts or scenes
  • non-linear; jumps in time
  • Identifible exposition, inciting incident and climax
  • Scenes are punctuated and linked by Sizwe’s letter to his wife
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12
Q

Identity

Themes and Symbols

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  1. Quest for changing identity
  2. Styles: forges a new identity as a photographer and records his clients identities so they are not lost to history
  3. Pride and dignity in identity
  4. Sizwe: more complex identity; his pasbook defines his identity, but it has dissapointed him. He assues the idenitity of a dead man to avoid returning to transkei
    - Sizwe believes his identity is fixed in his name
    5.True identity = knowing who you are, not a name or a NI number
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13
Q

Importance of family and community

Themes and Symbols

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  • Styles’ beief: photo’s link families through generation
  • Sizwe comes to PE to support his family
  • Buntu treats Sizwe like family
  • Styles tells us stories of community
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14
Q

Limitations and opportunity

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  • Limited by racism, but serve as an opputunity for change
  • Styles unfulfilled by his job at the FMF (limitaion) to he starts his own business as a photographer (opportunity)
  • Sizwe’s passbook limits him, assumes new identity (opportunity)
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15
Q

Death and Burial

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  • The birth of a dead man’s identity
  • Funeral parlour next to photography studio
  • Cockroaches in studio
  • Death defines life in the context of a passbook and the identity of a dead man
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16
Q

Dreams and Hope

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  • Styles calls Sizwe a dream when he walks in
  • Studio name = theatre of dreams; a fantasy that elevates the oppressed
  • Explores the deepest dreams of a black man in he aparthheid: clean passbook, stable sob, secure family
17
Q

Sub-themes

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Masculinity, manhood, existentiality (authenticity, sense of self)

18
Q

Symbols

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  1. Passbook
  2. Photographs
  3. Robert Zwelienzima
  4. A name
  5. NI number
  6. The letter
  7. Father’s Hat
19
Q

Preformance Space

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  • Actord represent themselves and the people hwo are oppressed
  • Found space: brings protest intetion to target audience
  • Imtimate and direct interaction with audience - breaks 4th wall
  • DISTANCE: Play within a play, shifts distance and intimacy with emotional scenes = stronger message
20
Q

Acting style

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  • Styles: Heightened physicality
  • Buntu: naturalistic
  • Multu-rolling
  • Realism
  • Mime
  • Actor God
  • Strong images
  • Audience interaction
21
Q

Sound

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Idiophones

22
Q

Set

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  • Minimal set (PT)
  • suggest environment
  • streets = empty set
23
Q

Styles

Characters

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  • Owner of photography studio, former Ford worker
  • Courageous, ambitious, charismatic
  • Enjoys photography and recording the history of people
  • “Theatre of dreams” - he is hopeful
  • Opens and closes the play
  • Pride in identity, authenticity, survivour
24
Q

Sizwe (Robert)

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  • Protagonist
  • Went to PE to support his family
  • No work permit for PE; told to retur to ciskei
  • Naive and moralistic in his name and identity
  • When he takes the pcture with Styles, he is accepting his new identity
  • It is not easy for him to accept this identity, but he does
25
Q

Buntu

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  • Generous activist
  • Lets Sizwe seep on his couch
  • Convinces Sizwe to assume identity of a dead man
  • Educated

Drama (3 decks)

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