John Kani Quotes

John Kani

Profession : Actor

Birth : November 30, 1942

Very rarely in the life of an actor and a performer do you do something you truly believe in, do you do something you are absolutely proud of.

John Kani

I have been on the Urban Brew board for many years and assisted with the artistic evaluation of the various shows that were pitched to the production company.

John Kani

It is a troubled soul that forces the human being to act. It is some kind of gangrene within you, inside of you, that eats your soul, that forces you to save your soul.

John Kani

Theatre has had a very important role in changing South Africa. There was a time when all other channels of expression were closed that we were able to break the conspiracy of silence, to educate people inside South Africa and the outside world. We became the illegal newspaper.

John Kani

It is ridiculous to think we can erase racism in South Africa, but through theater there can be a genuine attempt to move on with our lives and build a better country.

John Kani

I was 51 when I voted for the first time in 1994, and I look at South Africa through those spectacles.

John Kani

All over the world, there is someone sitting in a cell because he or she is not allowed freedom of expression.

John Kani

I did 'Sizwe Bansi is Dead' for 34 years.

John Kani

In 1973, 'Sizwe Banzi is Dead' and 'The Island,' which I co-wrote with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona, transferred from The Royal Court Theatre to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End.

John Kani

Before 1994, many South Africans used theater as a voice of protest against the government. But with the end of apartheid, like the artists who watched the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe, theater had to find new voices and search for new issues.

John Kani

Shakespeare examines how democracy is built.

John Kani

I write about the human condition, as a South African. I sometimes see South Africa with the spectacles of the past and there will then be a political content in my writing.

John Kani

This is the problem I have: I write a play and I give it to a director and they say, 'I'll do it one condition: if you play the role.'

John Kani

I am a citizen of the world, or no world at all!

John Kani

Someone once asked me what I missed most. I said, 'My youth.' I've never been a boy who could run around, go crazy, do this, try that. There wasn't time for that.

John Kani

Acting became a powerful tool for change. You had to tell stories that were important to you.

John Kani

You can give me any of Shakespeare's plays and I'll tell you a parallel African folktale.

John Kani

I spent 51 years under apartheid. I don't imagine suffering. I know it.

John Kani

When I tried to do 'Waiting for Godot, it was such a controversy. I was tired of political theatre. All I wanted to do was 'Godot.' You know what happened? We were told we had messed up and politicised a classic that has nothing to do with S.A.

John Kani

I still remember the moment when my teacher, Mr. Budaza, walked into class and said, 'Today we are going to study 'Julius Caesar,' one of Shakespeare's most important plays.'

John Kani