The Meaning of Zong – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Author: Giles Terera

Director(s): Tom Morris & Giles Terera

2 hundred years in the past, Olaudah Equiano recounts the studies of a bloodbath aboard the slave ship Zong, the place one-hundred and thirty-two Africans had been thrown overboard to protect the lives of the crew. Seen as not more than property, insurance coverage to assert, Equiano joins with anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp to sentence these actions, to re-open the blinded eyes of justice, and assist set in movement to ripples that led to the abolition motion within the UK.

However the narrative transcends deeper than many at first envisage; the mission extends from the courtroom to the press pits, the seas and the ocean flooring. After having bought his freedom, Olaudah faces an intimate battle of the erasure his previous – handed from proprietor to proprietor, an all too mortifying, however acquainted, story. Giles Terera’s valiant and modern debut play, The That means of Zong, is as a lot a narrative of the sins of our previous as it’s a modern story. Celebrating the human spirit as a lot as paying tribute to these misplaced – serving as an inspirational story, reasonably than one in all reprimanding.

At an preliminary look, these trying to the floor degree will see Terera’s writing for one factor – the condemnation of slavery, and absolutely the blind-sighted ignorance prevailing to this present day. The very significance of the manufacturing opening in a bookstore by which British historical past is sorely missing in these whose names don’t adorn the blue plagues of the streets they constructed and bought upon is a telling characteristic. However The That means of Zong is a communal piece, a coming collectively for betterment.

Author and director, taking the central position of Equiano, Terera is a reputation that deserves to be commonplace on the lips of theatre engagers. The That means of Zong’s writing is delicate, regardless of its refusal to shirk ache or discomfort, and borrows parts of genre-specific varieties and methods – reworking the atrocities into accessible entrances for an viewers. Collectively, he, Paul Higgins (Sharp) and Eliza Smith share a big degree of stage time, genuine in repose, and charming of their barbs and jests.

Composer and Musical Director Sidiki Dembele’s presence onstage honours the manufacturing’s worth of music, in addition to instils the significance of West African and Caribbean instrumentals and storytelling. The language Dembele imbues into the present is as valued as Terera’s writing.

However Terera’s work will not be solely a shattering of the frosted perceptions audiences have surrounding slavery, it seeks to not sift within the agony of historical past and as a substitute supply autonomy to the forgotten, and the loudest voice sits not with the lads or the attorneys, however with the ladies on stage. Kiera Lester, Bethan Mary-James, and Alice Vilanculo present a particular presence to the manufacturing’s second half, a extra nuanced method than the extra bombastic, although no-less efficient mannerisms and phrases of Higgins, Terera or Elcock.

Dave Value’s set interprets further dimensions – because the courthouse rafters make strategy to the timbers of the Zong itself, earlier than framing Mary-James or Vilanculo within the illusionary skeleton of the ship, a coffin, sunken to the depths of the oceans. However regardless of these spectacular set dressings, which utilise a large chunk of the Lyceum’s stage area, they’re cleverly used – as a substitute of relying extra on the scraps of wooden and hole drums to assist in character communications.

The That means of Zong deserves a full home each evening. And never solely as a device to coach and enlighten, it deserves recognition for its masterfully adept stagecraft and storytelling methods. Audiences owe it to themselves, and to hundreds of thousands of others to interact with these tales; tales the world wants to listen to, to parry the teachings we fail to heed. A resonating achievement, poignant and glistening with brilliance.

Runs till 23 April 2022 | Picture: Curtis Richard