Sizwe Banzi is Dead is a play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, first performed in 1972. Set in the South African towns of New Brighton and Port Elizabeth, the play tells the story of two men named Styles and Sizwe.
The play begins with Styles, a photographer, recounting how he got his job and started taking people's pictures. He tells various stories about his profession before a customer arrives. The customer is a quiet, mysterious man who says little about himself. Styles poses him for his portrait. Then the play leaps backward into the past. The reader learns that this man is not who he claims to be. Sometime prior to taking the photograph, the man, whose real name is Sizwe Banzi, stumbled upon a dead body with a friend of his. Together, they found the dead man's passbook. Sizwe's friend tells him that by stealing the passbook and pretending to be another person, he has a chance at a new life. Initially hesitant, Sizwe agrees to go along with his friend's scheme. He memorizes the details of the passbook and fakes his death. The play ends with him taking a picture for his new identification, solidifying his new persona.
The play initially premiered in Cape Town, South Africa in October 1972. Fugard worked collaboratively with John Kani and Winston Ntshona, the actors who played Styles and Sizwe. Since then, the play has become one of the most widely read and performed works of modern drama. Revival performances have been staged at Edison Theater in New York City and The Barbican and The Royal Court Theatre in London. The play was ranked as one of the best dramas of all time by The Independent, which said it was a "deceptively light and humane play that outlasts the apartheid era."
