Production History

The Island Production History

“The artists who created ‘'The Island'’ and the prisoners who inspired it understood that theater alone was not going to change their world. But Mr. Kani, Mr. Ntshona and Mr. Fugard built a haven in the theater for freedom that could not yet be achieved in the society at large. In jails, in theaters and on the streets, black South Africans expressed their opposition to tyranny with a sense of inevitability that transformed their collective performances into a self-fulfilling prophecy of freedom, willing their liberation into existence by performing as if it had never been in doubt” (Jenkins).

Athol Fugard’s The Island is the true to life story of two men attempting to put on a production of Sophocles’s Antigone, perhaps the most well known story about fighting oppression, under an oppressive force. Notice how that description lacks context. This is the because, in its essence, the play does not have to be staged under the conditions of Apartheid, though it was originally written as a subversive response to the South African government’s raid of Fugard’s theater company. The company was attempting to put on a production of Antigone, and during the raid, one of the cast was arrested and sent to Robben Island (the titular “Island”) where he staged his own mini-production of the piece. The Island is restaged every few years by vastly different theaters all around the world. Each iteration features roughly the same production design elements with a minimalist set and other undistracting design elements. Where the greatest theatrical differences occur is within the context of the production, and how the actors use their bodies to communicate that aspect of the story.

The first and most produced context is that of South Africa’s Apartheid era. Fugard, Kani, and Ntshona originally found a place for their subversive and provocative work in 1973 at The Space, a Cape Town theater which became known as a space for resistance theater. Fugard describes this experience.

"’Our first performance was in a wonderfully courageous little theatre in Cape Town called The Space. From a window backstage, you could see Robben Island. We knew the police were coming to the performance, and we didn't know what would happen to any of us. We didn't get involved in any big speeches. Then the three of us just looked out the window at Robben Island and shared one thought: the comrades, the brothers. And then we went in and did it. The play triumphed in London and New York as well as in South Africa. Audiences responded to the mixture of broad comedy and painful drama that the work contains. As the character of John says, audiences "laugh in the beginning and listen at the end.’”

Since then, in this context, it has been presented on Broadway in the Edison Theater (dissolved in 1991) alongside Sizwe Banzi is Dead, another creation of Fugard, Kani, and Ntshona’s, and the second of three plays eventually published and performed together in Statements (the third being Statements After and Arrest Under the Immorality act). John Kani and Winston Ntshona both received the Tony Award for “best actor” in 1975 for this performance. I found that Kani and Ntshona would go on to perform at the Royal Court Theatre in 1973, again in New York in 1988, at the Royal National Theatre in 2000, The Bluma Appel Theater and The Kennedy Center in 2001, The Old Vic in London in 2002, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2003. In 1999, the two actors worked with Peter Brook to create a new iteration that I can say with certainty was worked on at les Bouffes du Nord, and performed at Brooklyn’s Market Theater and London’s Royal National Theatre.

The Island took on a different context entirely in 2013. Abu Alhayjaa and Ahmed Alrakh asked Fugard if they could produce the play but not as South African prisoners. Instead they wanted to represent the conflict between Israel and Palestine as Palestinians living their truth within an oppressed state. “‘The Island’ proved to be a perfect choice. Fugard gave them permission for whatever Arabic translation they wanted. After a performance for released prisoners in March, one who had spent 22 years in prison told the actors they missed only one thing-putting their shoes under their head for a pillow” (Adas). The costumes also differed from the traditional jail setting, as they dressed in Palestinian Military uniforms. Originally performed here at the Janin Freedom Theatre in a refugee camp, the production has traveled to universities across the eastern seaboard of America and ran in New York at the New York Theatre Workshop.

The placement of the first runs of this production as in a refugee camp is just as important as the staging itself. The direct recontextualizing onstage, allows the show to travel and for others to understand this conflict through how curiously applicable Fugard’s words are to their own situation. However, Alhayjaa and Alrakh, could have produced a show in that refugee camp without changing any of the show’s elements and it would have still been impactful to those in the audience. The play is not only universally adaptable, but just like in Antigone, it contains a universality in resistance to oppression by the mere fact that it is produced. For example, there were two more recent productions in the United States, one in Kansas City, and another in Madison, Wisconsin. Their resistance to the treatment of black Americans in the U.S. lies in the act of putting on such a play in somewhere like Wisconsin which incarcerates more of its black men than any other state, by taking the example of apartheid and setting it as itself in a new population, forcing the people within that context to stop and look and draw their own connections.

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Adas, Jane. “Jenin Freedom Theatre Performs Athol Fugard's ‘The Island’ in New York.” The

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, vol. 32, no. 9, Dec. 2013. Proquest, search-proquest-com.dartmouth.idm.oclc.org/docview/1461978598?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=10422.

 

Billington, Michael. “The Island, Old Vic, London.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media,

23 Jan. 2002, www.theguardian.com/stage/2002/jan/23/theatre.artsfeatures1.

 

Capital Times. “Theater Review: Imprisoned but Fighting, APT's 'The Island' Stages a Poetic

Protest.” Madison.com, Madison, 24 June 2015, host.madison.com/ct/entertainment/arts_and_theatre/theater-review-imprisoned-but-fighting-apt-s-the-island-stages/article_5c7b4537-4fa3-578d-9121-98489a51f0fa.html.

 

“Freedom Theatre Opens U.S. Tour of Fugard's 'The Island' in Storrs.” UConn Today, 14 Dec.

2015, today.uconn.edu/2013/09/freedom-theatre-opens-u-s-tour-of-fugards-the-island-in-storrs/#.

 

Fugard, Athol, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. Statements. Theatre Communications Group,

Inc., 1986.

 

Jenkins, Ron. “THEATER; 'Antigone' as a Protest Tactic.” The New York Times, The New York

Times, 30 Mar. 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/theater/theater-antigone-as-a-protest-tactic.html.

 

Hsl. “The Space - Die Ruimte - Documentary.” The Space - Die Ruimte - Documentary,

thespacetheatre.com/.

 

“Island, The | BPA.” National Theatre Black Plays Archive,

www.blackplaysarchive.org.uk/explore/productions/island.

 

Janovy, C.J. “For These Two Kansas City Actors, A South African 'Island' Feels Close To

Home.” KCUR, kcur.org/post/these-two-kansas-city-actors-south-african-island-feels-close-home#stream/0.

 

League, The Broadway. “IBDB.com.” IBDB: Internet Broadway Database,

www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/the-island-3496.

 

Ouzounian, Richard. Toronto Star; Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]28 Apr 2001: J01.

“Robben Island Comes to Manhattan.” Al Jazeera America,

america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/3/robben-island-comestomanhattan.html.

 

“The Island.” Royal Court, royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/the-island-2/.