‘Sizwe Banzi is Dead’ on stage in Athens till Sunday
Peter Brook’s «Sizwe Banzi is Dead» is continuing at the capital’s Ilissia Denisi Theater through Sunday. Adapted by Marie-Helene Estienne, the play is based on a series of improvisations created by South African artists John Kani and Winston Ntshona, with the help of white anti-Apartheid activist Athol Fugard. The performance stars Habib Dembele and Pitcho Womba Konga. A deeply political play, as the director Brook explained in an earlier interview with Kathimerini, it addresses the restrictions placed by the Apartheid regime on black South Africans and how the restriction of free movement has become a global issue today. The only characters in the play are Styles and Sizwe. The former is a photographer and the later a laborer who comes to Styles’s studio for a photo portrait. The problem is that Sizwe has been forced to change his identity and the take the identity of dead man in order to get a job. The Athens performances of «Sizwe Banzi is Dead» are organized by the Attica Cultural Society and the Opening Nights film festival. At the Ilissia Denisi Theater, 4 Papadiamantopoulou. Reservations at tel 210.723.4567, 210.721.6317 and 210.721.0045.