A

Jon Bryden

as the Biko family’s lawyer, Kentridge, holds up the

shackles as evidence of torture in Langara‘s Studio 58 production of
An Inquest on Stephen Biko, on stage until Oct. 14.

—David Jenkenson photo

The idea was there
but writers weren't

This is one film I wanted so much
to like, to be able to praise. A film
produced, directed and written by
women, about women. It could
have been a major break through
in those areas where few women
film artists have been admitted
before. All that makes it doubly
painful to report that although it is
made with obvious devotion and
reverence for the problems of
young women in today’s society —
the basis of the film — it fails to
achieve its goals, despite a few
telling and moving scenes. And
those are all too infrequent in a
rambling, jerkily untold story
which cannot make up its mind —
or help you to make up yours — as
to whether it is serious, comic or
merely, as I was forced to con-
clude, ambiguous.

The story revolves around, the
experiences of a young woman
photographer just out of college
and trying to make it as a
professional in the competitive
world of New York. But it is really
more a series of vignettes than a
developed narrative.

The fault must be placed upon
the writers, since the direction,
acting and much of _ the
photography is, in tha main, that of
gifted young people and oustanding
pros; they all poured their hearts
into this one, which is more than
merely praying for success.

Whether through .lack of skill,
experience or a real study of the
writing technigues required for a
feature length film, they delivered
a choppy, uneven narrative with
little foreshadowing to catch our
interest, no developing conflicts
(except internal, which cannot be
photographed) and a lack of
narrative continuity which is
required to bring a film to a climax
and conclusion.

We leave the characters after 87
minutes just about where we met
them. About 60 minutes into the
film, the leading actress says in
anguished introspection, “I don’t
know what’s going on anymore.”
In that one sentence she summed
up the feelings tis reviewer had
been experiencifig for at least the
previous 45 mili

Partially com
casting. Weill
formers who W@
PACIFIC TRIBUM

ating is the

_

a selected per-

GIRL FRIENDS. Produced and directed
by Claudia Weill. Screenplay by Vicki
Polon based on a story by Poilon and
Weill. At the Denman Place Theatre,
Vancouver from Oct. 6.

meet-on-the-street people and not
sexpots or theatrical ‘‘per-
sonalities’’.

Centuries ago, Shakespeare gave
this undying rule to all playwrights
and all who would go to appreciate
their works. Remember, he said,
“the play’s the thing.” It has been
repeated hundreds of times in an
many ways, and once again only
last month by that serious veteran
actor Jack Albertson.

He said, ‘‘Let’s face it: an actor
is only asgood as the material he is
provided ... the words are the most
important thing and without them,
an actor has no place at all. When
you have a good script it’s a joy ...
a bad script, it’s a chore.’

Lester Cole

ee ee

Drama of Biko’s inquest —
seen on Studio 58 stage ©

Stephen Biko, a Black South
African student leader and a
founding member of the South
African Student Organization died
September 7, 1977 of brain damage
caused by blows to his head in-
flicted by South Africa’s security
police. The transcript of the
thirteen-day inquest that followed
his death was condensed and
transformed into a two-hour script
by Jon Blair and Norman Fenton
and for the next two weeks drama
students at Langara will be
presenting their dramatic re-
enactment at the College’s Studio
58.

Director Anthony Holland, in
introducing the play, wrote, ‘‘The
important thing in this production
is the understanding of the script.”
It is this understanding which the
students use to enhance their
presentations subtly without
becoming overly ‘‘theatrical.’”’ An
Inquest on Stephen Biko is a stark
production in which the revelations
which emerge from the
proceedings provide the dramatic
force for both the actors and the
audience.

The inquest, presided over by a
judge called Prins (Ear] Klein) is
intended to determine whether
Biko’s death was caused by “‘act or
omission” on the part of the South
African police after they arrested
him for not having /his passbook
when he left King Williams town.
But as the evidence is presented, it
becomes clear that his arrest was
because of his distribution of
“inflammatory pamphlets” and
engagement in political activity, a
fact which Goosen (Gerry Nairn),
head of the South African Security
Police, infers when in the witness
box.

The lawyer for the Biko family,
Kentridge (Jon Bryden), questions
a vast array of witnesses: police
officers, general practitioners,
physicians and neurologists who
all fit the same pattern — im-
peccably dressed, reserved and
implacable, like the marionettes
that they are, worked by the
ruthless hand of Goosen. As
Kentridge calls and recalls each of

them to the witness stand, their,
statements come to compose what

he calls in his final deposition, ‘‘a
tissue of lies”, ugly in their
thoroughness.

The truth which does begin to

TV personality Asner
joins in rights appeal

Television personality Edward
Asner, familiar to TV audiences as
television producer and newspaper
editor Lou Grant was among the
more than 400 leading Americans
who signed a letter last month to
U.S. president Carter calling on
him to ‘‘speak out for the human
rights of the 10’’ and asking that he
meet with ‘‘a representative
delegation from among our
numbers ... to discuss this most
urgent matter with you.”’

The letter, which was also signed
by 85 members of Congress as well
as several state legislators and
U.S. mayors, pointed out that, at
the time they were sentenced, the
10 faced a total of 282 years’ im-
prisonment for arson and con-
spiracy, charges that were widely
acknowledged to be trumped up.

“Since that time, every
prosecution witness against the
Wilmington 10 has recanted the
trial testimony, telling both the
state courts and a federal grand
jury that their testimony had been
induced by threats and bribery by
state and federal officials,” the

letter noted.

It added that further defence
witness had come forward since
the trial and that 2,600 trial errors
had been documented by the
defence. Despite that, an appeal
has been sitting in federal court
without action for 29 months while,
at the same time the U.S. Justice
Department has held up an ex-
pected investigation for 14 months.

The more than 400 signers told
Carter, ‘‘To this day we have heard
nothing from your office in support
of the human rights of Reverend
Chavis and his co-defendants. It is
well and good to speak of the
human rights of those ‘n other
lands but attention must be paid at
least equally to those who suffer
deprivation of the same rights in
our own country. We now appeal to
you to bring the moral weight of
your office to bear to secure justice
in this most important case.”

The letter called on Carter to
speak out in support of the human
rights of the Wilmington 10 and to
“urge a speedy conclusion’’ to the
justice department investigation.

NE

emerge, little by little, is the result
of the admirable tenacity and skill
of Kentridge, ably played by
Bryden, a graduate of the drama
program at Langara. As the real
cause of Biko’s murder i§ revealed,
the audience can follow, more or
less chronologically, ‘a man’s
progress to his death’’ and con-
tinually reflect on the enormity of
the injustice.

At the same time, the drama
reflects on the conflict of those who
position has always been one of
upholding the status quo. Not only
is Kentridge outraged at the
crimes committed by those such as
the police who are supposed to
maintain the law, but also at the
injustices perpetuated by the legal
institution in which he himself is a
participant — the court. The
judgment which the magistrate
brings down at the conclusion of
the inquest degrades the institution
which Kentridge firmly believes
in.

And another man of conscience
must face the fact of his
profession’s complicity with the
corrupt and inhuman system of
aparthied. Doctor Gordon’s liberal
heart is shocked when he comes to
understand that the doctors who
take the witness stand did not

uphold the Hippocratic Oath and
were, in fact, accomplices if
Biko’s murder because they did not
treat the symptoms which they
knew only too well could result in
death.

On the whole, the performances
were credible although at times, !
had the sense that some actors fell
they were there merely to “read”
rather than to give a dramatic
presentation. Director Holland was
at pains to point out in his
program, ‘‘although some of the
script may sound unblieveable,
can assure there is no fictiol
here.”’ It was necessary to carry
that thought throughout the
duration of each and every pel’
former’s presentation. A real mal
died at the. hands of the South
African security police. Real it
justices were, and are, being
perpetuated at every level every
day of the year in a country which
is dominated by the system of
apartheid. :

The students of Langara must bé
congratulated in their serious
effort to make vivid and real to thé
people of Vancouver what it is like
to live — and to die — in South
Africa if you oppose the existing
order. ‘
Janice Harris:

The top photo, of three-
year-olds in the GDR
town of Torgau wrapped
in their towels after their
baths, won second prize
for Waltraud Raphael in
the Beautiful Photo com-
petition of the World
Press Exhibition ‘in
Amsterdam in 1977. But
incredibly enough, the
same photo appeared on
the front page of the
West German magazine
“Martyrs’ Voice”, No. 6,
1978, with the following
caption: “Children in
prison clothes. A photo
smuggled out of a Soviet
concentration camp. The
children were born in the
camp and grow up there
till their parents are
released.”

The ‘smuggled’ picture |
that won a |

world prize

Ss