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Blood Knot and A Human Being Died that Night
South Africa: Then & Now

Two monumental plays by two South African icons at Mosaic pose a question. 

What has changed in South Africa in 50 years?

Nathan Hinton and Tom Story star in Athol Fugard’s classic fable Blood Knot is the never ending struggle between two brothers, separated by color but bound by blood.

Erica Chamblee and Chris Genebach face off in A Human Being Died that Night,  the true story from South African psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela’s  2003 book about the interrogation of Apartheid-era torturer and assassin Eugene de Kock.

We are reminded that in 1961 Johannesburg, when Fugard himself performed as Morris,  that the premiere production closed the day after it opened, after  a single performance, in part because it was then illegal for a racially mixed company to perform on the same stage. 

We can also read the daily political and social news articles on South Africa like the recent Guardian headline that asks:  Why is South Africa still so anti-black, so many years after apartheid?

And we ask again, what has changed? 

If you wonder about what can effect change, think on what  Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage) recently says that  “theater  ultimately re-humanizes the most powerful tool on the planet: the human heart.” 

Mosaic  Theater does more than try to answer  such questions…  Mosaic is the theater that transforms hearts.

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