Theater Abroad: Cry, the Beloved Country

King Kong brave as a lion

King Kong hundred feet tall

King Kong champ without trying—

That's me, I'm him. King Kong.

With notes as big as thunderheads starting and falling low at the end of the lyric, South Africa's King Kong was introduced last week to the London musical stage. Drawn from life in the shantytowns around Johannesburg, it gave its West End audiences a chance to see the result of a big event in theatrical history: a superb jazz opera written, directed and produced by South African whites, scored, sung and acted by South African...

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