My brother is gone
Theatre legend John Kani talks of his enduring friendship with fellow thespian and joint winner of the Tony Award for best actor Winston Ntshona
Veteran actor John Kani says the death of his friend and collaborator Winston Ntshona last week was like a body blow. “When they told me I couldn’t breathe. I collapsed into a chair and we called an early lunch on set. I started calling home. I didn’t know the passing of this man would hit me so hard.
Even though he was not well, it did not prepare me that my friend, my brother, was gone,” he says.
The men’s lives were entwined personally and professionally for many years.
“He introduced me to my wife, Mandi, and I was in school with his wife, Vuyelwa. That is how far back our friendship goes.
“I met Winston in 1962, also at high school. We clicked immediately and we used to walk home together. He and I would walk past my house, then I would walk back half a mile because we would be chatting. He was a sportsman, you know, an incredible human being. He won the victor ludorum because he excelled in every bloody thing. I was only better at debating, and that was just using big words to impress the girls.”
Kani laughs, but goes quiet for a moment.
Tony Award
There is a photograph of the actors at Sardi’s restaurant in Manhattan in 1975.
In leather, trendy long collars and aviator sunglasses, the “twins” were captured by the New York Times, smiling at the luncheon ahead of an event where they would make history.
“Joint winners of the Tony Award, best actor in a play,” says Kani, with the same pride he must have felt more than 40 years ago.
Speaking on the phone from Lake Como, Italy, where he is filming a comedy with Hollywood stars Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, Kani says the last time he saw his ailing friend he prayed he would not be travelling when Ntshona died. It was not to be.
Kani tells how the two left their factory jobs to join writing workshops in Port Elizabeth, where, with playwright Athol Fugard, they decided to dedicate their lives to the stage. The three were monumental in telling the story of apartheid on world stages.
“In school Winston got me a part in a play where I played his father and later at the workshops I got him a part playing my father. Thus began a friendship that started then and ended last Thursday. But ours was a true friendship. They say how friends are like stars, even when it is overcast and you may not see them, they are still there.”
It was for Sizwe Banzi is Dead, a play they co-wrote, highlighting the pass system and dire unemployment rate in South Africa that Kani and Ntshona won the Tony, directed by Fugard.
“To be nominated as best actor was enough because it was always exclusive to American actors. But we won. All the movie stars were there: Anthony Hopkins, Rex Harrison, Jack Nicholson, Angela Lansbury, it was a big thing. Suddenly the guy said the winner is … oh my God, there was a huge standing ovation. That was Winston and I. It threw us into TV and movies, we were crisscrossing the world.”
The award also protected them when they were imprisoned by apartheid police on spurious charges while putting on their contentious plays.
“When the police threw us in solitary in Butterworth the world press would protest and there would be massive demonstrations that the Tony Award winners were being detained and we would be released after 23 days or so.
“It created some sort of immunity, the government was afraid of the international media scandals if they banned us. It allowed us to perform plays that didn’t talk about the laws but highlighted the atrocities. Like The Island, about what was going on on Robben Island, which we performed all over the world.”
After one performance in the UK, attended by Oliver Tambo and Trevor Huddleston, the then ANC president wanted to speak to the pair. “Oliver Tambo was in exile and he said to us: ‘You two have told the English about the deplorable nature of apartheid in one night. In one night you have advanced the movement more than we have in years.’ We were so excited about that.”
In 1995 Ahmed Kathrada declared the trio honorary inmates of Robben Island after they performed The Island at the behest of Nelson Mandela. Ntshona and Kani starred in innumerable international productions of the play for three decades.
They were recipients of the Order of Ikhamanga (silver) for their contribution to theatre and the arts in South Africa.
“Our lives were so interconnected. I have lost a friend, colleague, comrade, compatriot. I am truly devastated. My mother would call him mntwana wam’ [my child], his mother would call me sana wam’ [my baby]. At the traditional functions Winston would be afforded a place next to my father, and we are not from the same tribe. I will never forget him as a friend.”
Ntshona, says Kani, had a quick, wicked sense of humour. “I remember being in England and an old lady asked us: ‘Excuse me, do you gentlemen speak English?’ Winston turned on his heel and said: ‘Sorry ma’am, we do not.’
“I remember his role, his spirit. I know he wished this country much, much better than what we have right now. He always cared about the people first, especially about the young people. He said if we don’t take care of them they will be our opposition, our own people. That was in 1996.”
Recognition
Fugard, Kani and Ntshona recently had streets named after them around Port Elizabeth’s Opera House, the oldest theatre on the continent.
“We have created a precinct now. I could really say our contribution and recognition has been astounding. It was creative work, we had a love and passion for new work, that essence of being an African on this continent. We could have done Shakespeare and told Cinderella stories, but we told stories about our people. Like Sizwe Banzi, it showed the inhumane nature of the apartheid state to a massive audience.”
Kani says they were “young and a bit foolhardy”, but the art was as important as the message.
“Winston is an incredible actor. He was excellent in Waiting for Godot, Full Frontal, in London and the movies … Blood Diamond, The Air Up There, you name it. But he stayed a generous human being. He would talk to actors, give advice in a very gentle way. His aim was to make the company good, then we would all be good and the play would be a success, rather than saying: ‘I am the star.’”
Kani would visit his friend in New Brighton in Port Elizabeth in recent years, where he had retired. “He also taught in his community and took young people to Scotland and Europe. He was doing this until his health started to fail.”
In their hometown people called them “the twins”. He says: “People would ask Winston about John and John about Winston. We were always in contact anyway. He would phone me from New Delhi and say: ‘Kani, this place is a mess. I miss South Africa.’ I would say: ‘I’m in Canada, or Kenya, and Ntshona, this place is not for me.’ We would always sit together and say how happy we were to be South African, our place in the best place in the world.”