The play, written by Athol Fugard, with contributions from the two actors premiered at the Space Theatre in 1972. Since then, it has received much international acclaim and become one of South Africa?s most famous plays.

?Sizwe Banzi is Dead?, which is essentially a political protest against the system of pass books and the treatment of blacks at the height of the apartheid period, tells the story of a man ? Sizwe Banzi ? who is forced to steal another dead man?s identity to survive.

The play opens with a solo performance by John Kani who, as the character Styles (acting the parts of many other characters), paints the picture of South Africa in the early seventies. The play opens with Kani reading a newspaper and giving the audience his views on current affairs around the world. Ironically, the issues he highlights are as relevant today as they would have been then.

His energetic performance is brilliant and as he moves around the stage, acting the parts of the exploited black worker, the white Mr Baas, the proud photographer and his clients, a full and vibrant picture of black South African society unfolds before your eyes.

When Sizwe Banzi (Winston Ntshona) enters Styles? photographic studio however, the light and entertaining note of the opening scene becomes more serious. Kani takes on the role of Sizwe Banzi?s confidant and mentor and the audience is invited into a world where survival is a struggle, where a book dictates your movements (and even your mortality) and where men are treated as ?boys?.

The post-apartheid experience of this play must be very different to the experience of the play during the apartheid era. Not only because a post-apartheid audience can find humour, where an apartheid audience may not have been able to, but also because the actors are now grandfatherly figures.

During the seventies, these two men would have been at their prime and the tone and delivery of the play would, no doubt, have been far angrier and far more striking. Furthermore, the play would have incited anger and the desire for action in its audience.

The passage of time, for both the actors and the country, brings with it a certain softening and the play now serves as a reminder of the past and the quintessential question of identity. Both actors put in awe-inspiring performances and the applause which they received when they came on stage and the standing ovation at the end of the play are testaments to the audience?s appreciation of their greatness.