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sals for Athol Fugard's Blood Knot.
True to His Vision: Kenny Leon's Groundbreaking Journey
For nearly thirty years, Kenny Leon has been
a major creative force on the Atlanta theatre scene. He began his career as an actor, but moved quickly into directing and producing.
The strength of his talent, vision, tenacity and leadership has advanced his career to inter-
national prominence, and has proven a signi-
ficant factor in elevating Atlanta theatre from
a local enterprise to a nationally recognized theatre center. Presently, he has simultan-
eously produced the current season of True Colors, the company he founded, while re-
turning to his acting roots in a production of Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot.
Leon describes the process of coming back to acting, after a hiatus of several years, as “scary,” but scary in a good way. Indeed, he looked forward to revisiting the role of Zach-
ariah, a role he played in 1998, also opposite friend Tom Key, who is now the artistic director of another Atlanta theatre, Theatrical Outfit. Written in the early 1960s in apartheid South Africa, Blood Knot discloses the complex, tormented relationship between two brothers, one dark, the other so light-skinned that he can, and has, passed for White. They manage to survive in a shack in the colored area of Port Elizabeth. When Zachariah becomes involved in a pen-pal relationship with a White woman, trouble ensues. Before long she writes that she plans to come to town to meet him. He persuades his brother, Morrie, to stand in for him and they spend from their meager savings to buy Morrie a new suit of clothes. When he puts on the clothes, Morrie gradually assumes the behavior of a White man, exposing both brothers to all of the fear and loathing at the root of apartheid. When the woman fails to appear, the brothers remain locked in their mutual need and repulsion for each other. According to Leon, the play remains relevant as a metaphor for human relations today. He says, “They have to live on this planet together. During this time with so much war in the world, we have to solve our problems without war and violence—that is timely.”
Blood Knot, directed by Susan Booth, current artistic director of the Alliance Theatre, is one of the featured productions at Atlanta’s annual National Black Arts Festival. This unusual triple collaboration among artistic directors marks a milestone in the history of the city’s theatre community.
But then, Leon’s career is a study in milestones. Born in Tallahassee, Florida, he eventually moved to Atlanta, and in 1978, graduated from Clark Atlanta University, where he majored in political science and minored in theatre. From there he entered law school in Los Angeles, but... (continued)
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Freda Scott Giles is associate professor of theatre and African American studies, and associate director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Georgia. Before launching her academic career, she spent eighteen years in New York as an actor and director.
Aug/Sept 2009
This article was originally featured in Vol. 19, Issue no. 1
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Kenny Leon and Tom Key reprise the roles of Zachariah and Morrie, respectively, that they played in Blood Knot in 1998.
Kenny Leon and Phylicia Rashad at the screening of the made-for-TV version of A Raisin in the Sun.
