Darryl Pinckney on Peter Brook’s sad and enchanting production of “The Suit,” a musical story set against the brutal history of apartheid South Africa.
Darryl Pinckney on Peter Brook’s sad and enchanting production of “The Suit,” a musical story set against the brutal history of apartheid South Africa.
South Africa’s AIDS Orphans: Breaking the Silence
Helen Epstein
When I first visited South Africa in 2000 to report on the AIDS epidemic there, one adult in five was HIV positive, and a million children had lost one or both parents to the disease. But what really amazed me was that no one was talking about this. Silence gripped the nation like a spell. People with obvious AIDS symptoms told me they were suffering from “ulcers” or “tuberculosis” or “pneumonia.” Orphans said their parents had “gone away” or had been “bewitched” by a jealous neighbor. Now, five courageous teenagers from a Cape Town slum have made a fifteen-minute film called Young Carers: Through Our Eyes about what it’s like to lose a parent to AIDS. It’s one of the most powerful films about the epidemic I’ve ever seen.
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