And the silences in The Island, now at Ensemble Theatre, lay on you with the weight of years of oppression, a heaviness that even freedom cannot entirely erase. In its four scenes, this anti-apartheid play—first performed in Cape Town 50 years ago—expresses both the desperation and hope of people longing for justice.
That huge concept is delivered powerfully in the first scene in which not a word is uttered. The two men, named after the actors who co-wrote the script, mime working in a quarry where they are compelled to shovel and haul sand from one spot to another—a pointless, backbreaking task that is meant to crush their bodies and spirit. The only outside force is a whistle blown by an unseen guard named Hodoshe , a sound that tells them when to work, when to stop, when to do anything.
They also decide to rehearse a scene from Sophocles, for an"entertainment evening" the prison is setting up. John will play Creon and Winston will be his niece Antigone in a rough semblance of drag. As John, Robert Williams is more talkative and animated of the two as he tries to keep Winston's mood lightened, while Nnamdi Okpala's Winston is often given to brooding. But when Winston as Antigone rages against the sentence of death for a crime of conscience, the parallels to today are all too clear and present.