Sizwe Bansi is Dead

The world renowned South African play, Sizwe Bansi is Dead was created and improvised by white dramatist, Athol Fugard and black dramatists John Kani and Winston Ntshona. It was finally put into written form by Athol Fugard in 1972. Its catchy title comes from the tormented letter that Sizwe writes to his wife about the dire situation in Port Elizabeth. The iconic and most memorable statement from that letter is: “Dear Nowethu, in a manner of speaking, Sizwe Bansi is dead!” The genesis of the play Sizwe Bansi Is Dead can be traced to Fugard’s experiences as a law clerk at the Native Commissioner’s Court in Johannesburg. At that time, it was required that every black and coloured citizen over the age of sixteen carry a passbook that restricted employment and travel within certain areas in South Africa. The passbook that every black man was forced to carry at the time, imposed limits on the employment and travel of all black citizens in South Africa. It took away their freedom of movement and choice, making them less than men. Their entire lives were contained in this passbook, and with a single stamp, one white man could totally alter a black man’s future and determine his fate. The characters depicted in the play struggle to maintain their own identities and sense of themselves as human beings under this oppressive rule. Within these circumstances, however, Styles, Sizwe, and Buntu realise that all they own is themselves. The only legacy they have to leave behind is the memory of their lives. While working in court, Fugard the playwright saw the repercussions of this law: blacks were sent to jail at an alarming rate. The play opens in the photography studio of a man named Styles. The studio is located in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. After reading a newspaper article on an automobile plant, Styles tells a humorous story to the audience about an incident that occurred when he worked at the Ford Motor Company. Styles continues to read the paper and talks about his photography studio. His musings are interrupted when a customer, Sizwe Banzi, arrives. Sizwe asks to have his picture taken, but when Styles asks him for his deposit and name, Sizwe hesitates, then says his name is Robert Zwelinzima. Styles asks Sizwe what he will do with the photo, and Sizwe tells him he will send it to his wife. When the picture is taken, the moment is frozen into what the photograph will look like. It comes to life and Sizwe verbally dictates the letter to his wife that will accompany the photo. In that watershed letter in South African drama, Sizwe Bansi gradually tells his wife that Sizwe Banzi is dead! He writes that when he arrived in Port Elizabeth from their home in King William’s Town, he stayed with a friend named Zola who tried to help Sizwe find a job. His employment search was unsuccessful; as a result, he was told by the authorities that he must leave in three days. Sizwe went to stay with Zola’s friend, Buntu. The play returns to the present time. Staying at Buntu’s house, Sizwe tells Buntu about his problems that — unless a miracle happens, he will have to leave the town in three days. Buntu is sympathetic to the problem and suggests that Sizwe work in the mines in King William’s Town. Sizwe rejects the idea as too dangerous. Buntu decides to take Sizwe out for a treat at Sky’s place, a local bar. The focus switches back to Sizwe as he continues to compose the letter to his wife. He describes his experiences at Sky’s shebeen, where he was served alcohol by a woman in a respectful manner. The scene shifts to the outside of Sky’s after Sizwe and Buntu have been drinking. Buntu decides that he needs to get home to go to work tomorrow. He goes into an alley to relieve himself and finds a dead man there! Sizwe wants to report the body to the police. Buntu rejects the idea, but he retrieves the dead man’s identity book to find his address. Buntu finds that the man, named Robert Zwelinzima, has a work-seeker’s permit — the very thing that Sizwe needs to stay in town! They take the book from the corpse. At Buntu’s house, Buntu switches the photographs in the books. He proposes that they burn Sizwe’s book — effectively making Sizwe dead — and have Sizwe adopt the dead man’s identity so that he can stay in Port Elizabeth. Sizwe is unsure about the plan; in particular, he worries about his wife and children. After much discussion, Sizwe agrees to the switch. Sizwe finishes dictating the letter to his wife. In it, he tells her that Buntu is helping him get a lodger’s permit. The scene shifts back to Styles’ photography studio; Sizwe is getting his picture taken. There are numerous technical, structural and political influences behind this play. Technically and structurally the play takes after the modern and postmodernist style of Beckett, Pinter and, Brecht and others which became most prominent in the 1950’s. Modernism is driven by the philosophy that since history and social order have failed humanity (as seen through the first and second world war), the individual must create their individual order in order to serve their needs. Also, the world is absurd and an absurd style of drama, as in all the arts, can better describe that world. In the dramas of the absurd, there is use of the surreal rules for example no concept of linear time. There is no concept of consistent identity. No concept of specific place and subject as seen in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. In Sizwe Bansi is Dead, there is a play inside a play inside a play. You see it, for instance, when Styles plays himself, his workmates, his boss, his clients at the studio all by himself on stage. At some point Styles becomes director and producer of the play by facilitating Sizwe’s story, beginning with the photograph. Much later, Buntu helps Sizwe rehearse the different roles of Robert Zwelinzima. This helps us reflect on various meanings of the word acting in this play. Life for black people under apartheid becomes a series of acting. They end up acting even the acting! At the level of basics, the play sets out to expose the awkwardness of apartheid South Africa’s pass book laws. However, this basic issue opens up finer challenges (physical and spiritual) that Africans face in the system of apartheid. Brian Crow and Chris Branfield, refer to what they call “a social theatricality” in the play. This refers to a complex play about a society in which people are playing at being what they are not in order to survive. This means that on stage, we see a play that says life is a play. Sizwe is looking for a job but he has neither a pass nor a job permit. He risks arrest and deportation back to the homeland. When Sizwe and Buntu pick the late Robert’s pass-book and a valid worker’s permit, Sizwe has to now spend his life acting Robert in order to live. Therefore there is a brute collapse between acting and living: “All right, I was only trying to help. As Robert Zwelinzima you could have stayed and worked in this town. As Sizwe Bansi …? Start walking, friend. King William’s Town. Hundred and fifty miles. And don’t waste any time!” Dying and death operate at various and related levels, but with huge ironies. Indeed Sizwe dies physically in as far as no one with the official identity of Sizwe will be seen again. Sizwe has died and becomes Robert and because this is the only the way to make Sizwe live a more economically convenient life. That suggestion of resurrection is rude, sinister and absurd: “Are you really worried about your children, friend, or are you just worried about yourself and your bloody name? Wake up, man! Use that book and with your pay on Friday you’ll have a real chance to do something for them…” The black workers are numbers and not people. So adopting a number in the register and pass allows one to live. You could say that the system loses through its practices. This brings out the issue of invisibility sometimes referred to as ghostliness. The black people are just a number in the eyes of the white system, their individuality does not matter: “No? when the white man looked at you at the Labour Bureau what did he see? A man with dignity or a bloody passbook with an N.I. number? Isn’t that a ghost? When the white man sees you walk down the street 132 and calls out, “Hey. John! Come here”…to you, Sizwe Bansi…isn’t that a ghost? Or when his little child calls you “Boy”…you a man, circumcised, with a wife and four children…isn’t that a ghost? Stop fooling yourself. All I’m saying is be a real ghost, if that is what they want, what they have turned us into. Spook them into hell, man!” Sizwe is in the grips of identity crises. If he wants to stay in Port Elizabeth, he has no choice but to adopt Robert Zwelinzima’s identity; and if he wants his own identity intact he has to go back to King William’s Town, because the government’s regulation under apartheid does not allow anyone with improper documentation to stay put in Port Elizabeth. Fugard’s major concern is only to expose the exploitative and oppressive system by dramatising it. The system is criticised without grappling with ways of changing it. Legitimate as it could be, radical nationalist critics have taken issue with the play. In an essay, Hillary Seymour makes several observations: First, in this play, Styles is able to see exploitation but his response remains individualised. His potential even as a unionist or spokesman is not explored. He quietly goes away, establishes the studio so that he can solely live. Secondly, in the studio, Styles ends up exploiting his fellow black people and his success depends on the gullibility and blindness of his fellow blacks. The blacks become as dry as the system. Fugard was born in Cape Town in 1932. When he was three years old, his family moved to the diverse city of Port Elizabeth. Growing up, Fugard was keenly aware of the racial divisions in the city and their economic and social consequences. In 1958, Fugard took a job as a clerk with a local court in Johannesburg to support his family. In court, Fugard saw racial injustice firsthand. Ever since his first play called No-Good Friday, Fugard became a key voice in South African drama. He has had popular plays such as Boesman and Lena, The Island, among many others. Memory Chirere