Memories of SURVIVAL: Reflections from the Tour

Some memories survive longer than others.

The year 1976 was monumental as my brother and I rode our bicycles across the country to get to know America during the bicentennial. It was a big, “yes, we can do this!” experience that set the pace for taking on daunting and unknown challenges.

It was also the year of the Soweto uprisings in South Africa, and when Jim Bertholf went to go see how theater was being expressed during these virulent times. My life changed the moment I said “yes” to Jim, when he returned home to Orange County, California and asked if I would help him bring over five young men to take on tour a play he saw there called Survival.

The intention was to help inform the world of what was happening in South Africa under the Apartheid regime. An incredible stage play with the actual actors, created from their lived experiences and holding a Q&A with the audience every night after the last act.

Now, Survival is willing itself back into our presence.

Personally, this story starts with my mentor Jim’s return from visiting with his college friend John Higgins in South Africa after seeing the play created through the efforts of Workshop ‘71, run by Robert Mclaren.

Then needing to get them out of South Africa under the guise of student visas as we were based at Orange Coast College, where Jim was the head of the Theater Arts Department. This was critical, as there were many bureaucratic challenges getting the actors out of South Africa. Jim was becoming frustrated, but not one to give up, he found a path.

This leads to meeting Assemblywoman Maxine Waters in 1976, soon after she was elected as a California state legislator, to help us get the visas. Before her election to Congress years later, she was a leader in the divesture movement focused on South Africa and calling to put an end to Apartheid.

Finally, we got everyone on a plane and received them at LAX with David Fanning from KOCE on hand to record a mini-doc about their arrival, background and intentions. David went on to found “FRONTLINE” for PBS, which he oversaw until his retirement just a few years ago.

Then, we toured the west coast between the Mexican and Canadian boarders in every professional theater, community theater, school gymnasium, church or other venue that would host the play and after-talk.

We had so many different experiences, from one end of the spectrum to the other. In Los Angeles at the Ebony Showcase Theater, Nick and Edna Stewart hosted the play for an extended run. After one of the performances, Rosco Lee Brown joined the actors on stage to MC the after-talk. In Berkeley, I’ll never forget the feeling of being alone in the light booth at one of the theaters and having all of the lights go out during the show as the theater technician stepped out for coffee. Or the school gymnasiums and community centers that had no stage lighting.

And the horrific noise rattling in my brain during a frightening accident while on tour. The entire truck with all of us in it and the trailer carrying the stage and lights rolled upside down on the freeway… yet we survived. This was complex and overwhelming for us all. Aside from the initial trauma of the accident on a major highway coming south out of Portland, Oregon, the actors thought the new driver we hired to help me was sent on a mission to end the tour. For me, there was a dance of calming nerves and getting us back on track to finish the tour. We only missed one booked performance due to the accident.

All this, and to mention, turning 21 while on tour with the sense of being involved in something greater than one might truly understand. This was a gift that has lasted my lifetime.

And of course, the wonderful friendships that formed over the tour.

These are the first memories that come to mind. Stories are coming back into focus… from almost 50 years ago. Technologies and formats changed radically, my photos were slides, videos were on tape, and there was no internet as we know it.

But my memories are ingrained forever being with Seth, Silelo, Themba, Fana and Peter everyday for months while witnessing their awe and amazement in what we take for granted.

And now, to be weaving so many other perspectives of a shared journey that is still in motion, seems to be a story that wants to be told… the story of Survival.