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I saw this at the Opera House last Friday. Written by John Kani, it’s part autobiography, part state of the South African nation.

My one word review is “awesome.”

I was fortunate enough to see John Kani interviewed on The 7:30 Report before attending.

KERRY O’BRIEN: When celebrated black South African playwright and actor John Kani travelled to England with a white theatre director in 1973 in the days of apartheid, he had to describe himself as the director’s gardener to get a passport. In following years, as his international career flourished, so did his role as a leading arts activist against repressive white regimes. One brother was jailed on the infamous Robbin Island. Another was killed while reading poetry at a grave site. He himself spent time in jail and was savagely stabbed in one assassination attempt. Post-apartheid, still one of the most respected figures in South African theatre, he confronted a different challenge. John Kani is currently on tour in Australia, performing in his own powerful post-apartheid play Nothing But The Truth, and I spoke with him on set at the Sydney Opera House. John Kani, can we just briefly flash back to your life under apartheid. For instance, when you came back to South Africa not long after winning a Tony award on Broadway for Best Actor in 1975, you were arrested and held for 23 days without charge. Why were you held and how did you get out?

JOHN KANI, PLAYWRIGHT AND ACTOR: We go back to South Africa, performed the play in the rural communities of South Africa. The police came just as we did the curtain call, grabbed us both and we disappeared. We were charged because the play was deemed political and that it promoted hatred amongst races, inciting people to public violence, furthering the aims of Communism and the banned African National Congress. We were released after 23 days because of immense pressure and demonstrations all over the world.

KERRY O’BRIEN: In 85, your role in the play Miss Julie provoked a walk out in the audience. Why?

JOHN KANI: I was tired of doing kind of protest theatre. I wanted to do some classic and I wanted to do Johan Strindberg’s Miss Julie. We cast South Africa’s leading Afrikaner actress, Sandra Prinsloo, who was seducing me, a black person, and that was also the first kiss on stage of a black man kissing a white woman. So, the play opened in Baxter Theatre, 660 people. I touched her breast. I perked my little lips on her lips. Two hundred and eighty people walked out.

Nobody walked out of this performance.

At the end there were tears of sadness, happiness, and a standing ovation all at once.