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Actor, director and playwright John Kani shows no signs of slowing down as he leaps into multiple projects
At 75 years old, theatre veteran Dr John Kani’s energy does not waver – he’s finishing up a Walt Disney movie, hitting the red carpet with The Black Panther team and rehearsing his new play.
Kani is the voice of the oracle Rafiki in the highly anticipated live-action film The Lion King, which will premiere at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on July 19.
Kani and the mother of his seven children, Mandi, will walk the red carpet alongside the likes of Beyoncé, who voices Nala, and John Oliver, who gives Zazu his voice.
That is if he chooses to go, for Kani is a busy man and his attention leaps from project to project.
“Yes, I have received my invitation to go to the premiere. But I said to them: ‘I can’t say yes now, I am working.’ But, according to my contract, I am to be present for marketing,” he said.
Kani starred as King T’Chaka in the Marvel fantasy hit flick Black Panther, and he greeted fans with “Wakanda forever!” as the hugely popular movie walked home with three Oscar awards last weekend.
He is in Cape Town at the moment, learning lines and rehearsing for the latest play from his own pen, Kunene and the King, in which he co-stars with Sir Antony Sher.
Kunene and the King will open in Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK on March 21.
The Guardian newspaper has pronounced it one of this year’s “unmissable” productions.
“So now I am almost overwhelmed by the expectation!” said a laughing Kani this week.
The play, directed by Janice Honeyman, will run at The Fugard Theatre in Cape Town from next month.
It revolves around two men from vastly different backgrounds who are flung together by chance.
Kani portrays Lunga, a retired oncology nursing sister. Sher plays Jack, a Shakespearean actor who is gravely ill.
“Lunga is incredibly experienced, but retired three years ago. He does little odd jobs, specialising in cancer patients who do not want to go to hospice; who want to be looked after in the privacy of their own homes,” said Kani.
“On the other hand, Jack is a brilliant actor who has cancer, but has also been offered the part of King Lear in a production of the play. So Lunga is tasked with looking after Jack, who is rather conservative and jealous of his space.”
From the onset, tension flares between the men.
“Immediately, we open on an explosion. Jack misunderstood the word ‘sister’. He thought it would be Sister Kuhn, not Sister Kunene. So Lunga makes a joke with Jack: ‘You thought I was white, blonde with blue eyes and big tits, didn’t you?’
“I wove in the story of King Lear as Lunga helps Jack learn his lines. But Lunga has an African point of view. I mean, when Jack refers to Edmund [a character in King Lear] as an illegitimate son, Lunga goes: ‘Excuse me, what do you mean illegitimate?’ Because in the African language, there is no such thing as illegitimate; that word does not exist. Your son is your son, your daughter is your daughter. So the two men argue about little things like that.”
At its core, the play examines fractures in South African society, said Kani.
“So we have these bottled up attitudes: ‘I’m not a racist, I just don’t like white people.’ Or, ‘I’m not a racist, but I’ve got nothing to do with black people.’ As Kader Asmal once said to me: ‘John, we need to write a new English; an English that’s not dividing us.’
“We were hoping to develop a new language that would be embracing; that would be unifying.”
Kani says his passion is telling stories that flicker with hope – “stories that talk about the indestructibility of the human spirit”.
“In my writing, it’s always about the points of meeting. And, in that meeting, how we carefully weave a tapestry of reconciliation and humanity. And those are the stories I like; the stories that say we have found each other. But, for dramatic effect, I always start the two people far apart from each other in a situation that seems almost hopeless.”
This, he says, is the role of art – to build societies and to educate people, an antidote to a mass media prone to highlighting negativity.
“Art is universal,” he added. “It resonates with the human condition around the world. For example, I was doing Sizwe Banzi is Dead in London in 1973. Afterwards, a man, weeping, said he’d like to talk to me. So I thought maybe he was from South Africa. He was white, but it turns out Polish. And he told me his story of trying to get out of Poland during the German occupation, and how it took him 10 years to finally get the papers right. Watching the play ignited his pain, and yet our play was about the passbook.”
Despite Kani’s globe-trotting career, home remains New Brighton in Port Elizabeth, where he was born.
“In Port Elizabeth, they know me as my father’s son, as my mother’s son; they call me by my clan name,” he said. “Then I go to Cape Town – I can’t walk across the street without someone wanting a selfie, or telling me how much they love me; how much they appreciate my work.”
He winks with good humour.
Kani is generous with his time, and wears the mantel of his influence with humility.
