Blood Knot and Other Plays

As a young adult, reading this play was very interesting and eye opening. For those who want to learn about certain perspectives of the African culture, I recommend this play. If you enjoy learning about religious practices, I would recommend this play as well. It isn't that long to read, for those (especially students, like myself) who don't particularly enjoy reading texts. Overall there were things like family, religion, and other important topics that impact global perspective in this play. It's still educational, so there won't be really much silliness even though when we think of plays, we kind of look forward to some or lots of comedy. If studying the Topic of Africa, this is most definitely helpful.

This review was written by Emmet Sheehån and a few others- Arthol Furgard’s 1601’s The Blood Knot, a play about two black South Africans living together in a single roomed house. Tackles the idea of being black in South Africa during the early 60’s, brother hood, the essence of freedom, lust, loneliness, impossible dreams, all while still being a pretty funny and being all around an enjoyable, fun read. If you’re able to read a decent sized play consisting primarily of banter between two characters, while also having a more mature subtle humor reminiscent of the humor from most Post- Waiting for Gadot plays. Blood Knot’s plot goes as follows; two black South African supposed brothers are living together in the same one- roomed house. Zach works at a gate where his job is to stand by the gate and shoe the black people away while greeting the whites. Morris, Zach’s brother who left Zach a while back who has returned less then year ago now takes care of Zach and his aching feet from having to stand by the gate all day. The two decide to become pen pals with a woman, which gets them into something way above their heads. Though the long dialog between characters may be a turn off for some who pick up this play, it’s the exact memorable dialog between the likable characters that can go from hilarious in some moments to rather touching in others. Only minor personal complaints can be made as I feel some of the banter went on maybe a bit too long and the hinting at them possibly not being related didn’t seem to go anywhere.