Summary

The play opens in Styles’s photographic studio in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth. At the center of the stage is a table and chair and nearby are a camera and tripod. Styles walks onto the stage in a white dust coat and bow tie holding a newspaper. He begins to read and comment on the headlines from the newspaper. Noting a headline about a car plant expansion he remarks that while there is an expansion of the plant, there won’t be an expansion in the paychecks of the workers. Styles once worked at Ford Motor Company and read countless headlines about an American or Londoner giving speeches about improving working conditions, but the talk always ended in the paper and there was never any change in payment. He recalls one of his workdays at the Company when one of the Fords actually came for a...