Legendary South African actor Zakes Mokae was a formidable voice in a rich local theatrical tradition that some would say epitomised the work of playwright Athol Fugard. Mokae died in Las Vegas on September 11 at the age of 74 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Alongside Fugard, Mokae was part of pioneering South African theatre outfit The Rehearsal Room, whose 1958 production, No Good Friday, featured both Mokae and Fugard. The play marked a turning point in local theatre and was to help position the work of Fugard and his co-conspirators, such as Winston Ntshona and John Kani, among South African theatre’s elite.
Their plays were the most potent and artistically deft exposés of the grand apartheid tragicomedy. In the late 1950s, following the destruction of Sophiatown, Mokae began to advance protest theatre and, in league with Fugard, he bridged the racial divide — in the theatre, at any rate. The pinnacle of their success is summarised in two plays: The Blood Knot (1961) and Master Harold and the Boys (1982).
In the international cast of Master Harold, Mokae appeared with Zeljko Ivanek as Hally and Danny Glover as Willie. Mokae won a Tony Award in 1982 for his outstanding performance in the play. In 1985 the play was dramatised for television and featured Mokae and Matthew Broderick. In 1993 Mokae won his second Tony Award for featured actor in a play for his role in The Song of Jacob Zulu, by South African-born Tug Yourgrau.
Born in Toby Street in Sophiatown on August 5 1935, Mokae left South Africa for the United Kingdom in 1961. In London he reconnected with fellow South African exiles in the arts and politics, among them Lionel Ngakane, Arthur Maimane, Mary Benson and Mazisi Kunene.
In 1966, thanks to Adelaide Tambo, Mokae was introduced to a young nurse from Cleveland, Ohio, at an ANC meeting in London. Both were nurses at Whittington Hospital in North London. Mandelyn would become his wife after a humble ceremony at a registry office in North London. The event was followed by a small reception at the flat of exiled friend and journalist Arthur Maimane.
This week Mandelyn spoke fondly of her husband, saying that he had ”been deeply hurt” by the realisation that South Africans had not recognised his role in the dramatic arts as they should have.
He moved to the United States in 1969 and starred in more than 40 movies and a long list of TV series. He appeared as a guest on some of the world’s most popular television hits: The West Wing, The X-Files, Knight Rider and Oz.
His list of anti-apartheid films includes the 1989 movie A Dry White Season, shot in Zimbabwe, in which he starred with Donald Sutherland, Lionel Ngakane and the then-lesser-known Sello Maake ka-Ncube.
Robala ka kagiso Morolong (Rest in peace, Morolong).