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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Janet Suzman

The play that changed my life: Janet Suzman on staging Othello in apartheid South Africa

Othello Shakespeare John Kani South Africa Johannesburg Market Nelson Mandela
Joanna Weinberg, Richard Haines and John Kani during a performance of Othello at the Market theatre in Johannesburg, 1987.
Thrilling … Joanna Weinberg, Richard Haines and John Kani during a performance of Othello at the Market theatre in Johannesburg, 1987. Photograph: Ruphin Coudyzer/AP

It was 1987, three years before Nelson Mandela walked free. None of us knew that secret talks were going on with Mandela in prison. We saw apartheid lasting till the crack of doom. It seemed impregnable. The law had once banned “miscegenation”. And here I was directing Othello, a play about miscegenation, at Johannesburg’s Market theatre.

I used to go back there from England regularly. I was closely involved with Barney Simon and Mannie Manim, who co-founded the theatre in the mid-70s on the site of the old Indian fruit market. It was very close to my heart: a place where freedom of thought and freedom of speech could reign.

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