Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
An infection yet to heal
There's an invisible third presence throughout John Kani’s magnificent play — the malevolent incubus of apartheid, says GORDON PARSONS
PIC CAP Mirror to apartheid: John Kani and Anthony Sher in Kunene and the King Pic: Ellie Kurtz
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MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
Kunene and the King
Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
VETERAN white South African actor Jack Morris (Anthony Sher) is due to crown his career by playing King Lear. Diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, from the moment his medical carer Lunga Kunene (John Kani) turns up, their respective attempts to find a working relationship are beset by their country’s shared history.
In Kani’s two-hander, their progress towards recognising one another as individuals and not as products of their corrupted past is infused with humour and mediated through confronting cultures, languages and, fascinatingly, as the stricken Jack struggles to learn Lear’s lines, Shakespeare.
Just as Shakespeare’s character has to learn to see his world through unclouded vision and find a shared humanity, so Jack edges towards a freedom born of mutual respect. Similarly, Kunene has to assert his professional pride and racial self-respect to cope with an awkward patient wallowing in sardonic disgust at his situation.
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