REVIEW: ‘Kunene and The King’ at the Joburg Theatre is a stage piece chronicling present South African history in motion

 

‘How do you put a nation’s history on stage?’ is a question that comes to mind when engaging historically nuanced theatre productions such as Kunene and The King staged at the Joburg Theatre from 25^th May to 19^th June 2022. This play is written by John Bonisile Kani, arguably the South Africa’s most important theatre legend and also performed by him alongside yet another important thespian ever to come out of South Africa, Michael Richard. This piece is star-spangled in its entire outfit for it is directed by Janice Honeyman, multi-award winning artistic director with lighting by Mannie Manim, the co-founder of the Market Theatre with Barney Simon. On the stage, with the setup taking you into the house in a suburb of Killarney, the overture music by Sibongile Khumalo welcomes you, Theta Wathula Nje playing softly in the background. The song was originally composed by Victor Ntoni. Overture music on stage is there to prepare the audience of what is to happen, it is a reflection of what the play is about.

Dr. John Kani and Michael Richard on stage. Photo by Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

True to the opening moments, it does of course grow into a story of two very different people coming together in greater understanding and empathy. Lungiswa Plaatjies’s musical and her praise poetry interludes the scenes whilst mesmerizing the audience in the midst of dealing with hard-hitting realities on stage. At the heart of the play, there is a friendship developed gradually from bumpy to a real brotherhood later on in the play.  In 1992, Stella Adler of New York Times said: “The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation. The theatre is a spiritual social x-ray of its time.” The play deals with daily realities of post-apartheid South Africa with a surge confrontational subtlety.

These daily realities are chronicled through a friendship between a retired nurse and caregiver Sister Lunga Kunene (played by John Kani) assigned by the agency to tend to this aggressive belligerent old actor Jack Morris (played by Michael Richard) who is optimistic about defeating dreadful liver cancer and ultimately take a role of King Lear (from which the King in the title emanates) in a play to be performed in Cape Town. The patient is alcoholic and he expected the caregiver to be a woman by the name of Sister Koon. Kunene rubbishes this gender stereotype by assuring him the he is a sister and a black man. Briefly into the conversations, there is a distinct clash of pronunciations and egos that maneuvers the entire performance in great humor. Morris claiming to be apolitical, he exudes throng attitudes of white supremacy or rather covert racism in his indiscreet generalizations such as saying ‘your people’ or ‘you people’  whenever he makes a point about black people, to which Kunene is thoroughly prepared to take him on. In answering Morris, Kunene doesn’t claim to be national spokesperson for black population but righteously points out that all the crime and corruption that Morris complains about it is the doing of the apartheid which denied black people fair and equal opportunities to the whites.   

Lungiswa Plaatjies. Photo by Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

This 90minute long theatre piece does not feel tiring to the bum on the seat. From nuanced writing of Kani peppered with subject of African spirituality, philosophy, culture, politics and social dilemmas he made sure that every audience member takes home a task for social and personal reflection. Later in the play we see Morris being humbled and his racial echelons challenged on his trip to Soweto to consult Sister Kunene at his house in Sakoto Street.  He narrates unbelievably the story of his taxi ride from Bree taxi in Johannesburg and how everyone in the taxi was kind and protective of him, slamming the notion he harbored of black people being monsters. Kunene doesn’t hesitate to ask Morris ‘Why do you keep being surprised by the goodness of black people?’  In the end both men find something softer, too, in a friendship that is somehow both timid and passionate – and there are lovely flashes where they recognize the shared joys in life, as well as the preposterousness of its distresses. John Kani’s writing is a national treasure laced with the melancholy of human hardship, equality and freedom for all. 

I have enjoyed the performance and the delivery of the script by the veterans. Although it is a two hander, both the men carried the show with tranquility and touch of humor. Music by Lungiswa Plaatjies glues the scenes together beautifully with her musical instruments, vocals and percussions.  The play tackled multilayered topics including foreign nationals taking over South Africa and Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu among others. Kunene agrees government failed the South African citizens in many fronts. Jack apologized for not seeing Kunene as a human being first but as a Sister or black man. This he furnished with heartfelt apology of gatecrashing into his home to quarrel about crime and corruption. The play allows for reflection on the gains by the democratic South Africa and the lack of social and economic freedom for many black South Africans. I think this play should be watched by many people including politicians in parliament because they have become so aloof to the realities of ordinary people who voted for them into parliament. Kunene and The King exudes kaleidoscopic perspectives in the modern South Africa.

The play will tour to The Playhouse Company in Durban from 25 June to 3 July 2022 and continues to Mandela Bay Theatre Complex in Gqeberha from 7 to 10 July 2022.