Reviewed by Judy Richter
South Africa has abolished its
odious apartheid policies, but when playwright Athol Fugard acted in the first performance of
his "Blood Knot" in 1961, apartheid's racial discrimination was still the law
of the land. Fugard, who is white, is credited with helping to abolish
apartheid with his powerful plays about its effects on individuals.
Set
in the village of Korsten near Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in the early '60s,
"Blood Knot" is a two-man play about two brothers. One of them,
Zachariah (Steven Anthony Jones), has black skin. The other, Morris (Jack Willis), is so light-skinned that he
can pass for white -- a distinct advantage in that time and place. Morris has
been away for some time, but he has recently returned to live with Zach in his
one-room shack. Zach has an exhausting job, while Morris stays home, doing the
cooking and cleaning and making sure that Zach has hot water to soak his feet
when he returns from work.
The
brothers follow the same daily schedule, dictated by the alarm clock that
Morris sets several times a day to tell when it's time to eat and when it's
time to go to bed, etc. Their lives change when Zach says he wants a woman.
Morris doesn't quite approve, but he says that Zach can get a woman pen pal.
Morris helps the illiterate Zach with the correspondence. Then they learn that
the woman is white. Any relationship with her would be unlawful. When the woman
says she's coming to their town and would like to meet Zach, the brothers'
concern mounts. Morris wants Zach to end the connection right away, but Zach
wants Morris to meet the woman in his place. Zach even uses the money that they
had been saving to buy a farm and instead buys Morris a fine suit of clothes
and accessories. Morris dons the clothes, and the brothers begin role-playing a
game that veers dangerously close to violence near the end of Act 2.
They
also play a game at the end of Act 1, but it's a more enjoyable one as they
re-enact the way they pretended they were driving a car when they were boys.
Still another game involves ridding themselves of the shadow cast over them by
their late mother.
The
set by Alexander V. Nichols features a wall of corrugated metal, probably tin, in
place of a curtain. Before each act it serves as a screen for projections
depicting scenes during apartheid. It then rises to reveal Zach's shack,
defined by skeletal walls of old lumber. Kathy A. Perkins' lighting is generally
effective, but it seems overdone in the car ride scene. The costumes are by Sandra
Woodall, the
sound by Dan Moses Schreier. Music composed and recorded by Tracy Chapman is used mainly when the brothers
recall their mother.
Willis
and Jones, directed by Charles Randolph-Wright, are superb. They convey the
unbreakable bond of blood that both brothers feel as well as the tension
generated by the difference in their complexions. In August the two actors
spent two weeks in South Africa to understand the culture and develop an ear
for the accents. Their time appears to have been well spent.