A Chalice of Knives: The Last Days of Lorca

Federico Garcia Lorca, one of Span's greatest poets and playwrights, was brutally murdered by Franco's Falangists during the Spanish Civil War. 1936-39. "A Chalice of Knives: The Last Days of Lorca" is written by South African poet and playwright, Walter Saunders. He wrote the play while attending on a daily basis the apartheid government's fraudulent investigation into the murder by the South African police of Stephen Bantu Biko, inspirational leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa."A Chalice of Knives" is a play which, with a growing sense of inevitability, captures both the terror of the time and Lorca's own acceptance of his impending fate. The structure is spare and innovative and the language captures the tone and poetic nuance of the poet it portrays. Designed to be performed with a guitar backing, "A Chalice of Knives" is a refreshing and tempting prospect for directors who are looking for an original dramatic experience. In order to ensure that readers and directors are in a position to appreciate fully the play's evocations, the editor, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, himself a director, actor and author of numerous books on theatre, has provided a comprehensive introduction on both the historical period in which the play takes place as well as Lorca's own significance nationally and universally. He writes: 'Fascism is no more in the land of Lorca as formal apartheid is no more in the land of Biko. Lorca, like Biko joins the long list of intellectuals and writers whose lives were unjustly and cruelly crushed by totalitarian regimes which go in mortal fear of the values they stand for and the pens with which they immortalise those values. In this way Lorca is a man for all seasons. So far there is no end to such regimes. However, thank goodness there is also no end to those, who, like Lorca and Biko, stand up to be counted and in the process renew our faith that ultimately humanity will answer to their call.'