The Guthrie Theater’s presentation of “Kunene and the King” would have had Shakespeare clapping out of his seat. This heart-wrenching tragedy left me wiping tears while pondering its political and social implications, making me and the entire audience simultaneously disheartened and reflective.
South African playwright John Kani plays Lunga Kunene, a no-BS Black caregiver who stays with a stubborn white South African man, Jack Morris (Edward Gero), who is dying of terminal Stage-4 liver cancer.
Kunene, in addition to taking care of Jack physically, helps him learn his lines for his titular role in Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”
I didn’t expect this to be a two-man play, but after seeing it, I can’t imagine the story being told any other way. The audience could become fully invested in Jack and Lunga’s dynamic without other characters inserting themselves into that tension. The only other character was Isithunywa, played by South African artist Ntebo, who acts as a spiritual messenger at the beginning of the play and in scene transitions.
The play opened to an absolutely stunning set — Jack’s realistic-looking Johannesburg apartment perfectly reflected the divorced man’s life: disheveled and covered with takeout trash.
The entire play takes place in the homes of Jack and Lunga, yet the themes of this play were not bound by the set — it actually allowed the audience to dive deeper and not become distracted by constantly-changing scenes.
Lunga Kunene, also known as Sister Kunene, is nothing like the young, white nurse Jack expected. Immediately, Lunga pushes Jack’s buttons, telling him to clean up his trash, take his pills and, most prominently, and stop his self-destructive drinking and racist behavior.
Through Lunga’s personal account, the audience has the chance to hear what life during apartheid looked like for Black South Africans.
Both men share their painful experiences during apartheid and continually blame each other for “their” people’s wrongdoing against the other. This accusatory tone seamlessly weaves in and out of the other’s dialogue.
The entire play highlights the power and implications behind simple words, as Jack falls into the trap of racial generalization and Lunga no longer wants to be “the spokesperson for all Black people.” Both of the men use the term “you people” to define the other, and soon they both realize these unfair claims are driving the wedge into their already-strained relationship.
Genuinely, I loved everything about this play — except I wish the actors could be heard clearer; at times it was a tad hard to hear their lines. This took away from the softer, intimate moments of the play as I strained to hear what was said — but it gave me a chance to literally lean into the story.
I laughed, I was shocked and I almost cried. Kani’s seamless interweaving of humanity and mortality allows the audience to reflect on how they might see someone who experienced the same history differently than they did.
Jack and Lunga have inexplicable connections to Shakespeare despite their cultural differences. One scene has a gorgeous parallel structure, with Jack reciting Mark Antony’s funeral oration from “Julius Caesar” in English and Lunga following in a native African language. During the dramatic handoff of Jack’s Shakespeare bust to Lunga, it appears that the characters have finally found a middle ground.
That bliss only lasts for a few minutes, though, because once again, their stereotypes of the other race emerge. Jack’s selfishness and entitlement materialize: he’s not concerned with the suffering of anyone but himself — especially not the pain Black people experience in his community.
After countless small confrontations regarding how they view apartheid and South African politics, Kunene finally loses patience when Jack leaves his affluent white neighborhood and shows up at Kunene’s modest house in Soweto. This massive argument maims not only Jack’s ego but also his physical health.
He collapses after their heart-to-heart, ending their fight, with the cancer finally winning its battle.
Although we never get to see Jack live out his dream of playing King Lear on the stage, he learns to look beyond his prejudice and see Lunga for who he is: one of the only people who truly cares for him. The play ends with Jack, in a moment of empathy and recognition as he dies, telling Lunga, “Now I see you.”
I left feeling like I also saw the characters for who they were and what they lived through — I felt the same catharsis as if I actually watched a Shakespeare play.
Grace Woelfel can be reached at woel8456@stthomas.edu.
