THE ISLAND

Written by Athol Fugard, John Kani & Winston Ntshona

                                        Directed by Hiu Cho Wong

THE ISLAND, set in the notorious Robben Island maximum-security prison, is a tribute to the men and women who were imprisoned there during the fight for a free and democratic South Africa.  The play follows two political prisoners as they rehearse their two-man version of Sophocles’ Antigone for the prison’s annual concert.  THE ISLAND demonstrates that it may be easy for a repressive regime to imprison a person, but crushing their spirit is harder.

ABOUT THE ISLAND

THE ISLAND was developed through extensive workshops with actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona.  The play first premiered in Cape Town in 1973 and has since toured internationally. It also had an acclaimed Broadway run, winning Tony Awards in 1975 for both actors and earning nominations for Best Play and Best Directing for Fugard. In January of 2001, THE ISLAND returned to the West End with its original cast.

THE ISLAND is based on the true story of Norman Ntshinga, a black actor cast as Haemon in a version of Antigone that Fugard directed in the ‘60s.  During a police raid, the actor was arrested on suspicion of being a member of the then-banned African National Congress and sentenced to 10 years at Robben Island.

Robben Island was a prison for political opponents of the South African government at the time the play was written. It’s most famous inmate was Nelson Mandela, but in its time, it held thousands of men who have been imprisoned because of their resistance to the racist regime which governed their country from 1948 until 1994.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

Hiu Cho Wong is the Artistic Director of Theatre de R&D in Hong Kong.  He earned his Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the UCLA School of Theatre Film and Television, and his BFA with first class honors from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.  His recent directing credits include The Island, Marat/Sade, Summer and Smoke, Betrayal, Antigone, and Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train.   He has also composes and performs live music using both Chinese and Western instruments.

Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, actor, and director educated at the University of Capetown.  In 1972, he was a founder of Cape Town’s Space Experimental Theatre.  One of the first white playwrights to collaborate with black actors and workers, Fugard writes of the frustrations of life in contemporary South African and of overcoming the psychological barriers created by apartheid.  The politics of his plays, including the banned Blood Knot (1960), put him in conflict with the government and he was forced to take his plays overseas.  After Blood Knot was produced in England, his passport was withdrawn for four years.

Widely acclaimed, his plays include Boesman and Lena (1969), which was made into a film starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett in 2000, Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, and The Island (1972), the semiautobiographical work Master Harold…and the Boys (1982)), The Road to Mecca (1985), and Playland (1993).  In his first two post apartheid plays, Valley Song (1995) and The Captain’s Tiger (1998), Fugard addresses rather personal concerns, but in Sorrows and Rejoicings (2001) he focuses on the complex racial dynamics of South African’s new era.  Fugard has also written one novel, Tsotsi (1980), which was adapted to the screen and won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.  An accomplished actor, Fugard also appeared in the films Gandhi (1982) and The Killing Fields (1984).

The cast of THE ISLAND will feature Lovensky Jean-Baptiste and Dorian Logan.

THE ISLAND Set Design is by Starlet Jacobs. The Lighting Design is by Josh Levy.  The Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble Artistic Director is Tom Burmester.