The Court Theatre’s revival of Athol Fugard’s classic Apartheid-era polemic Sizwe Banzi is Dead is the culmination of the collaborative Chicago Fugard Festival (other works were performed by the Remy Bumppo Theatre Company and TimeLine Theatre). The play is a stark look at the impact of South African Apartheid policies on the lives of individuals, told in an unconventional narrative by very different lead characters. 

Banzi’s narrative weaves the story of its titular character, an unemployed South African forced to leave his wife and children in search of work in a larger city, together with those of two men who impact his life. The piece opens with an extended monologue by Styles (played with gusto by Chiké Johnson), the proprietor of a small photography studio specializing in personalized postcards. Styles tells a sprawling tale of his journey from the factory lines at a local Ford automobile plant to self-made business owner, and in the process gives the audience an introduction to the social climate of Apartheid-era South Africa. Johnson’s over-the-top performance serves the role well, from his mimicry of the uptight white factory foreman Baas Bradley in his clumsy interactions with the African workers to the re-enactment of a long Old West-inspired shootout with petulant cockroaches at Styles’ newly acquired storefront. Just as Styles is seemingly established as the story’s protagonist, he receives a visit from a bewildered stranger who introduces himself as Robert Zwelinzima and asks to have a photo taken for a postcard to send to his wife. After an amusing  portrait session, Styles fades abruptly into the background and the focus shifts to his mysterious customer.

The customer, as it turns out, is Sizwe Banzi himself (Allen Gilmore). A work-seeking migrant to the South African township of New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, Banzi has been discovered as an unregistered worker under Apartheid laws and marked by white government officials for expulsion from the city. Banzi reveals in a note to his wife that “[he] is dead, in a matter of speaking,” and the story flashes back to his attempts to hide and then shed his identity with the goal of remaining in New Brighton to find work and earn money to support his family. Banzi finds shelter in the home of Buntu (also played by Johnson), a family man with an anti-authoritarian streak and a desire to help Banzi find his way. After a night of drinking, the two men stumble upon the body of a dead, presumably murdered African man, and Buntu hatches a plan for Banzi to assume the identity of the dead man (Robert Zwelinzima) and continue living in New Brighton. Banzi’s struggle to retain his identity while facing the loss of his name (or worse) becomes the heart of the piece, and ties his story with those of Styles and Buntu to the larger theme of black Africans’ fight for equality and self-actualization in the white-dominated South Africa of the 1970s.

At its core, Sizwe Banzi is Dead is about the performances of the leads and their interaction with the audience, and director Ron OJ Parson takes a mostly hands-off approach. The performance-friendly direction allows the actors, Johnson in particular, to fully inhabit their characters and create a sense that the lives we see on stage have real physical and cultural histories. There are times when Parson could rein in the action on stage – while Banzi was conceived as an interactive piece dependent upon the connection between the characters and the spectators, one digressive sequence in particular sees the leads lingering a little too long in drunken conversation with what seems like every member of the audience. Scenic designer Jack Magaw utilizes a spare, effective stage setup consisting of little more than a camera and tables and chairs, and the actors are game for miming parts of the environment that Magaw leaves to the audience’s imagination. The backdrop consists of photos of South African citizens with their government –issued passbooks. While the decision to incorporate famous images (notably Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu) with those of anonymous South Africans is occasionally distracting, it adds a touch of familiarity for the audience and is a reminder of the far reach of Apartheid-era policies.

The performances are excellent. Johnson’s versatility is a wonder – the almost Vaudevillian antics and exaggerated facial expressions of Styles satirize the cultural climate of Apartheid so heavily that the performance toes the line of parody. In a stark contrast, his Buntu is a picture of quiet determination and fierce intelligence, a physically and emotionally solid presence in a play full of movement and uncertainty. Gilmore’s Banzi alternates between sheepishness, defiance, and desperation with relative fluidity. Gilmore is particularly effective in portraying the conflict in Banzi’s impossible decision to leave his family, and the resultant fear that the character feels in spite of his physical strength is played out in a particularly heartbreaking moment.