Word: msomi
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Umabatha, the current revival of the 1970 play by South African playwright/director Welcome Msomi, is such a remarkable amalgam of widely different cultures, goals and modes of performance that it's difficult to know how to approach an assessment of it. Enacted entirely in Zulu by performers in traditional Zulu attire, Umabatha* is at once a history lesson, a dance-and-music spectacular, a celebration of Zulu culture and--last and, theoretically, most important--a reworking of Shakespeare's famous tragedy Macbeth...
...fusion is not nearly so bizarre as it sounds. Msomi first penned the play 28 years ago in apartheid-riven South Africa, at the urging of a drama professor who suggested that he find a way to showcase and celebrate "the richness of our South African culture" in a format that might easily be understood by the rest of the world. Msomi's epiphany came when he realized that the political background of Macbeth-- the half-mythologized atmosphere of the warring clans of medieval Scotland--was eerily similar to that of the birth of the Zulu nation, united...
There are, however, significant differences between Shakespeare's original and Msomi's adaptation. Umabatha is a much speeded-up version of Macbeth, cut to fit within the space of two hours. This is in large part because Msomi has compressed a great deal of the speech of the play, presenting the story largely in terms of action, movement and intervals of dance and song. Although Msomi does retain many of the original play's most tragically powerful scenes, the swift pace of the telling reduces our ability to identify with the characters. The story unfolds less like a tragedy...
Last week, in a Pretoria prison, the gallows trap was sprung and Elifasi Msomi went to his maker. "I am satisfied," nodded Chief Manzo Iwandla, one of nine Zulus watching. "Tikoloshe did not save...
...local Zulu chieftains were not so purblind. Fearing Tikoloshe might still be on hand, they asked permission to stand by and watch when Msomi was hanged. Permission was granted...