Set during South African apartheid, The Islandis a play that Athol Fugard co-wrote with two writers and actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both Black South Africans. The three men met when they were members of a drama group called the Serpent Players, a group started by Fugard. The play premiered in 1974 in Cape Town, South Africa, and then played in London and New York, in repertory with another play by Fugard, Kani, and Ntshona called Sizwe Banzi is Dead.
The Island Study Guide Set during South African apartheid, The Island is a play that Athol Fugard co-wrote with two writers and actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both Black South Africans. The three men met when they were members of a drama group called the Serpent Players, a group started by Fugard. The Island (1973) Athol Fugard A Quick Rundown of The Island - The Island is a Fugard play that resorts to the Classics to protest Apartheid. It takes place in four scenes, opening with a lengthy mimed sequence in which John and Winston, two cell mates in prison on Robben Island, carry out one of the totally pointless and exhausting tasks. In The Island by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona is a perfect example of the power that art has and the place it occupies in political revolution. It can parallel many event that occurred and that are happening at the moment. New york theater review, theatre, BAM, Fugard. So it was three decades ago, in a South Africa ruled by an apartheid regime, that John Kani and Winston Ntshona wrote The Island, a remarkable play about life on the prison of Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent twenty two years.It was a difficult play to write because, although Kani and Ntshona had been imprisoned in another prison on. The Island (1973) Athol Fugard A Quick Rundown of The Island-The Island is a Fugard play that resorts to the Classics to protest Apartheid.- It takes place in four scenes, opening with a lengthy mimed sequence in which John and Winston, two cell mates in prison on Robben Island, carry out one of the totally pointless and exhausting tasks designed by warders to break the spirit of political.
The play is set in an unnamed prison widely believed to be Robben Island, whose most famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela, was kept captive there for twenty-seven years. The two protagonists of the play, John and Winston, are prisoners; one has recently successfully appealed his sentence and is soon to be released, while the other has been sentenced for life. As the two of them grapple with the dehumanizing effects of apartheid and imprisonment, they also prepare to perform Sophocles' play Antigone for the other prisoners. Over the course of The Island, we begin to see parallels between Antigone's plight and the plight of the prisoners.
The play was successful in South Africa and soon earned a run in London's West End, premiering at the Royal Court Theater in Haymarket. John Kani and Winston Ntshona starred in the London production, playing their namesake characters. The production on Broadway opened a year later and earned Tony Awards for both Kani and Ntshona.
The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Fugard, Athol. The Island. Oxford University Press, Township Plays Anthology, 2000 Paperback Reissue.
The play is one of several written by Fugard as part of his ongoing anti-racist activism in South Africa, in Africa in general, and around the world.
The play is divided into four scenes. Scene One begins with a prologue-like sequence in which central characters John and Winston enact the various torture-like circumstances in which they find themselves. Then, without a break in the action, the characters are returned to their shared cell, where they tend to each other’s injuries and try to encourage each other to forget about the suffering they experienced that day.
As part of his efforts to distract Winston from his suffering, John tries to get him engaged in their preparations for a performance of the play Antigone that they are offering to the guards and to the other prisoners. Winston does not seem too interested, but John keeps pressing him, asking for his help in constructing a necklace out of used nails for the play’s central character, the princess Antigone, to wear. Their conversation also references the play’s subject matter - Antigone’s struggle against the autocratic power of the State, as represented by her uncle, Creon. John also urges Winston to be more agreeable in his behavior towards the guards. Finally, he engages Winston in a game that they seem to play often, leading each other through imagined stories that remind them of their lives outside prison.
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In Scene Two, Winston takes steps in the direction of committing to the Antigone performance, but becomes upset when John laughs at him in his costume. John’s attempts to convince him to get back to the preparations are interrupted by the arrival of a guard, who takes John out of the cell. Alone, Winston muses on his discomfort with the whole Antigone experience, and resolves to tell John again that he will not do it. When John returns, Winston starts to have that conversation, but is interrupted when John tells him that he has been told his sentence has been shortened. The two men celebrate John’s impending freedom, but John cuts the celebration short out of fear that the whole thing might be a trap.
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Scene Three is set later that same night. John lies awake counting the days until his release. Winston leads John through an imagining of his return home that is at first a happy story, but then becomes darker and more intense. When John cries out for him to stop, Winston explains that he is afraid of being left alone, and of losing his sense of self and of purpose when John leaves. After a short passage of time, John asks Winston if he remembers his lines for the play. Winston says yes, and they get ready to do the performance of Antigone.
Scene Four is set on the day of the performance. John speaks to the audience, which consists of guards, other authorities, and fellow inmates. He sums up events in the lives of the characters before the play began, and then speaks the play’s first words – those of Creon, the voice of the State whose authority has been challenged by the princess Antigone. Winston then appears, wearing the necklace of nails and dressed in what passes for a costume. Creon (John) and Antigone (Winston) argue over whether Antigone has the right to defy the state. As their argument intensifies, Winston rips off his wig and accepts her punishment, having “honoured those things to which honour belongs” (227).
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The play ends with a series of images that echo the circumstances of imprisonment and repression with which the play began.