Statements is an absolutely stunning collection of three plays by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. Written in the early 1970s, the plays lay bare the horror of what it was like to live in the racist South Africa of the time.
I can only image how powerful and electrifying it must have been to have seen those plays performed contemporaneously.
Things have clearly moved on in South Africa since then, and hopefully the worst excesses are over – but it seems to me that there will always be somewhere in the world where injustice exists, and man’s inhumanity to man is all too plainly in evidence: the Middle East, Ukraine, even domestically within self-proclaimed ‘civilised’ countries.
There should be more plays like those in Statements; more voices shouting long and loud against injustice.
Ian Gouge - Writer 