Macbeth / Umabatha: Global Shakespeare in a Post-Colonial Market

Summary

Umabatha was presented in 1997 as part of the first season's repertory at the Globe theatre on London's Bankside. It was a curious piece, most memorable for the huge cast of astonishingly agile dancing extras and its energetic, but deafeningly loud, drumming. It was performed in Zulu with English sur-titles taken from text provided by Welcome Msomi and the programme included a scene by scene synopsis of the action. Yet, the play was recognizably Macbeth. It included all the play's familiar elements, including the witches, the bloody sergeant, the dagger scene, the ghost of Ban quo, the murder of Lady Macduff and her son, the sleepwalking scene, and the final battle in which Macbeth is defeated.

The narrative came from Shakespeare but the setting and the style signalled the play's African origins. The witches who opened the action were young women with beaded hair who performed their magic by casting stones (or were they bones?) in a calabash. The cast was dressed in leather skirts and furry leggings, the men were armed with short stabbing-spears. The drunken porter drank liberally from a gourd and when Macbeth saw the witches' vision of the procession of kings, he induced the spectacle by snorting a powder.