The play features only two characters: half-brothers Morris and Zachariah share the same mother, who is black. However, because Morris’s father is white, his skin is far lighter than his brother’s, allowing him to pass for a white man. During the Apartheid era, an authoritarian leadership rooted in white supremacy governed South Africa. Consequently, the white minority in power dominated the nation’s black majority politically and economically. Non-white ethnic groups were segregated into poorer neighborhoods and disenfranchised politically.