The Island of Authority.

The Theme of Authority & Ntshona and Kani’s play, ‘The Island’

WINSTON: I must leave the light of day forever, for the Island, strange and cold, to be lost between life and death. (The Island, Scene 4).

This epigraph, ‘a quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme’ (Meriam Webster dictionary)

Is found at the end of the final scene of this play; 'The Island'. It illustrates the hideous South African’s  apartheid era.  Apartheid being an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness"

The play emerged in June 1965, When amateur actors ‘The Serpent players’, were rehearsing a production of ‘Antigone’ (Oedipus’s daughter) Which is a tragedy about Institutional, natural and supernatural forces and authorities. The play by Sophocles, a famous Greek dramatist, continues to be performed worldwide (Richards, et al. (2014) pg. 283) 

'Antigone', (60 sec.) Summary. http://plays.about.com/od/antigone/a/antigonesummary.htm

 The actor playing Haemon was arrested. There is no reason given why, other than a ‘racial segregation of the apartheid regime’ (Richards, et al. (2014) pg. 284) He was sent to Robben Island Prison, Cape Town, South Africa. Nelson Mandela was also a prisoner there at the time.

The Serpent Players continued their production with John Kani playing Haemon, whose brother was also a prisoner. He sent letters letting them know that the play was also being performed as a two man piece on the island, by ‘memory of the play they were to have done when they were arrested’ (Fugard, (1993) p. xxviii)

Thus evolved ‘The Island’ a play about two men, Winston and John, deserted on Robben Island. The play pulls us into this bizarre existence, where their fate is at the mercy of prison wardens and judges who ‘didn’t even look me in the eye’, when he gave that sentence, ‘blew my life away like cigarette smoke, ten years’ and their struggle to find meaning in their lives, in part through their performance of 'Antigone' on Robben Island Prison.

 'The Island', Plot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(play)

There is so much to consider in this dynamic of existence that it is hard to imagine or find places of sense. These men were arrested for rehearsing a play on their homeland that they are permitted to perform on Robben Island Prison.

A play which had represented their struggle under apartheid by its virtue. Now became a ‘play within a play’ (Richards et al. (2014) p. 289)

The play shows dramatic expressions of the men’s intensity of feeling, through displays of emotion. They speak in colloquial human terms,

‘[shouting the other man down]. Will you bloody listen!’

‘Hodoshe’s talk! (Their prison warden), That’s want he wants us to say all our lives. Our convictions, our ideals… that’s what he calls them…child’s play. Everything we fucking do is ‘child’s play’, when we cry, when we shit…child’s play!...I’ve had enough! No one is going to stop me doing Antigone’

Our epigraph therefore, is a dastardly revelation of the bitterness of isolation from the human society and interaction. Along with being under the oppression of racist segregation.

In Antigone’s case, her banishment in Sophocles play was to a cave, to die at the hands of the gods for giving her brother a burial suitable to the Greek gods.

‘The Island’ brings us vividly into the experiences of oppression from ‘authoritative institutions’ The desire for self-expression of truth, personal and human, through the acting out of a ‘play’ which is despite this critical personal need for expression, ridiculed. ‘They will laugh at me’… ‘Who cares about that as long as they laugh in the beginning and listen at the end. That’s all we want them to do…listen at the end!’ Just like King Creon heard the truth, in ‘Antigone’ in the end. Plucking out his own eyes, as he could not bear to see what his own ignorance had done to the kingdom of Thebes.

The arts allow us to express thoughts, experiences and emotions that are perhaps difficult to explain or reduce to academic or institutionally authoritative form. Texts cannot suffice. Voices need to be heard. The experiences we have in our lives which are subtle, intangible or hard to make coherent when we live in organised, authoritative or state based regulations, are ones which find expression and receptive resonance in this way.

 Imagine what it feels like to live in a world where you are oppressed, your freedom of action, thought and mobility, restricted by state authorities. The impetus to express these worlds of humanity becomes stronger. In 'The Island', through the ‘heat of the sun’ the sound of their ‘grunts as they dig’ and the direct language conveying depth of emotion, ‘I hated you'. Expressions of layers of feeling, ‘Winston’s anger and outrage are now uncontrollable’ ‘explodes with joy’ and the descriptive language of stage directions, '[mention of his wife guillotines Winston’s excitement]’ we feel like we are really living the actual experience.

Being able to ‘bear witness’ in this fashion, finds us a more valuable version of authority than the oppressive authority of the apartheid regime. This kind of self-expression shows us that authority is in fact a virtue coming from within the experience of being a human being. By this I mean the authority of the truth of a person’s dignity, rights and humanity. Which can be expressed via creative impetus and self-regulated action. Is wonderfully composed in Winston and John's interaction in the play, 'The Island'.

The Island was performed in ‘The Space’ Theatre in 1973 for the first time. Named ‘Die Hodoshe Span’ Meaning, ‘Hodoshe’s, (the prison guards) work team’. To intentionally distract potential apartheid dismantlement of the performance.

  The venue was set-up under the guise of being a ‘club’, therefore attracting a wide variety of attendees.  Not being state funded meant there were no apartheid rules as to who could attend, perform, or write content. People could perform works that ‘reflected contemporary South African society’ (Richards, et al. (2014) pg. 286) albeit under smoke and mirrors.

 It seems as though, out of the ‘light of day’. Their performance was made at night, under wraps, when it deserved and even needed to be heard in the light of the times of South Africa. These expressions of humanity were made, the natural authority of them were performed and received. But in a similar way as to ‘strange and cold between’ the day and night or of ‘life and death’.

Initially shrouded in the night, events performed so that we could not such commit crimes of humanity on our consience again, were held from a distance to our daily lives and personal responsibilities. Though these authoritative expressions were not, most importantly, ‘lost forever’.

When first performed, it had come from memory of improvisations from a two week workshop, Directed by Athol Fugard, a white director who had worked with The Serpent Players since 1963, despite apartheid laws.

The text that we read of ‘The Island’ at its first public appearance ‘was not written down’ (Richards, et al. (2014) pg. 287) it was too politically sensitive.

 This leads me to consider how apartheid as an understanding of social constructs is an important discourse. However what else was evolving, socially at this time?  In this way, the record of history has an authoritative notion that only apartheid is considered relevant from this time.

What we have learnt about authority being a natural and value based human experience, contradicts this idea of historically recorded authority.  In its academic form, it is isolating of unique social identity developments of the time. Reducing the experience’s to that of apartheid, white and black separation; 

Is of progressive thought when companioned to the statement ‘between life and death’.Which is a dualistic experience, of one or the other, rather than more complex attributes. For example there is more to life than being alive and then being dead. The arts teach us that we have an essence, a humanity, a real personal life, at whatever time or situational context we live in.

These plays, Antigone, and The Island, in fact live on timelessly by exposing how state authority is flawed and prone to corruption by not valuing these personal humanities, as they naturally exist and arise.

There is no beauty in a re-written, falsified history. There is also nothing to learn from it and this is demonstrated by the play 'Antigone' who was listening to her inner authority of values, when she acted. King Creon was listening to his state version of authority, different to the respected worlds of Antigone’s Classical Greek God’s.
As the chorus ends up reconciling Antigone as the one with virtue and a real understanding of the heart and soul of the city of Thebes at the time; this suggests that true authority comes from our inner humanity, as the use of state based authoritative power led to the ultimate ruin of their kingdom.

When state or institutional values, clash with our own, our lack of humanity leaves people ‘lost forever, between life and death’. Their complexity and inner beauty as stories were lost to the worlds which do live forever, and withstand the test of time in its essential, personable core.
Stories and tales, plays and books, such as which inspire transformation of exploitative, or authoritative institutions without eternal values, actually give us something worth living for. A ray of light, and insight, an inner acknowledgment of what is real, and what it not.

For example, in Britain today, a person not receiving care dying in the winter months. Who is accountable?  

What about the rights of children? Migrating families who are sent to their deaths? A lack of compassion in state systems? Funding given to state memorials that would be better spent on education, research or resources for the current struggles of humanity in our everyday lives?

Any person who has committed suicide must have felt oppressed or unheard. Misrepresented or bullied. Their stories are also ‘lost forever’.

 Insanity, the extreme of mental health problems, so closely linked to dehumanisation. Hidden in state hospitals. ‘Strange and Cold’ places. All are results of a lack of respect for human experiences.  Along with, our lack of humanitarian response, or responsibility to them. Our governing states need to work for us. What we believe in about ourselves and need. Not the other way around.

This explains how the theme of authority is a questionable one. Also oppressive when it stems from not listening to or caring about difficult or natural human experiences as being valid and authoritative, even in their uniqueness. Many valuable stories have been lost.

 It seems futile that in both plays the struggle ends with an impersonal semi-death like state. Mirroring how a lack of humanity in our subtle social interactions can escalate to real experiences such as this. But it also teaches us this. That our subtle and unkind lack of personal authority, our own inability to face our inner darkness, as our own responsibility, results in and creates these very conditions. 

Our shadow is real. We must own it. For the sake of our own happiness and essence of who we are, human beings. Nothing more, nothing less.

The plays show us how this struggle is not a new one, but a deep part of a collective psyche as human beings. We don’t want to be banished to a cave or an island, we want to have our own values, not oppressed, but expressed, heard and understood in the light of day. We want equality. We want the complex art of our living to be heard and respected as a creative will within us. Like the performer’s John and Winston. we are alive, and we are not afraid. 

 I have learnt that authority and validation are personal things, internal values, and not external sources; when you come down to it, who you are and what you feel is right and true enough validation for yourself. For example, Fugard’s inner authority compelled him to create the play, The Island, despite external authoritative voices. Creative activity can transform worlds. It speaks to our humanity.

Indeed it was the international reputation of the play The Island, when performed in 1985 in Cape Town, that was quoted as an ‘international call for the immediate release of Nelson Mandela’. It was this personal questioning of state authority, creatively expressed, which led to his freedom. (Weekend Argus, 1971)

And that is a story for us all, surviving the span of all our short existences.

Bibliography.

 Fugard, A. (1993) The Township plays (ed.D.Walder) Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Lynda, P., and Fiona, R. (2014) Ideas of authority, Milton Keynes: The Open University.

Meriam Webster dictionary (Internet) (2015) Available from: www.meriamwebsterdictionary.com.

Accessed 12/05/2015               

Plays.about (Internet) (Accessed 2016) Available from www.plays.about.com

 Wikipedia (Internet) (Accessed 2016) Available from www.wikipedia.org /wiki/The_Island_ (play)

 (Weekend Argus, quoted in The Open University, 1991. p.92)