Acting and Identity in Sizwe Banzi is Dead and in Death and the King's Horseman

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Both "Sizwe Bansi is Dead", (written by Athol Fugard in collaboration with John Kani and Winston Ntshona) and "Death and the King's Horseman" (written by Wole Soyinka) are both set in South Africa, in two important and significant cultural moment for the country.

"Swize Bansi is Dead" tells the difficult reality of Africa under apartheid (1950s), analysing the complex issue of identity in that time. The rules of Apartheid meant that people were legally classified into a racial group, mainly Black and White, and separated from each others.

This division restricted black people from being able to vote, having medical care, education, or other public services, and if when, in rare cases these were possible, they still were of a lot inferior compared to what white people were entitled to. Not only Black people were thus deprived of their write as human beings, as persons, but what most suggested that they'd lost their identities is that all of them had to have an "identity book". This item, insert them into a system of figures, where each one of them wasn't identified by a name anymore, they were recognised and registered by a number. This is a very important issue of the play, in fact the focal point is to show us how irrelevant the name and the "identity" had become for those people.

Is your name your identity? And if not, is it possible to maintain a stable and truthful inside identity when deprived of all signs of uniqueness such as your own name?

This theme is very much confronted in Sizwe Bansi is Dead. The main character, Sizwe Bansi is forced into talking a terrible decision. Taking a dead man's identity book, therefore stealing his "official" identity, to be able to get on with his life and keep in contact with his f...

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...the characters show how loosing their write to vote and therefore express their opinion, and especially having to carry an identity booklet all the time (just because of the colour of their skin) can generate an inside crisis on one's identity. Is our identity determined by our name? Can we change name and be able to keep a stable identity? This play also raises the issue of being actors, just to survive in the society they lived in. Not being able to show their feelings and their disappointment at any time, obliged them to smile, sing, and fake.

These issues are also raised in "Death and the King's Horseman", but more with showing how important and determinant our culture is for our personal identity. Thus, living in an era where this one is changing, because of the rough imposition of a new one, can torn one's personality, making them doubt all of their beliefs.

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