An abhorrent story is given a putting theatrical interpretation in Giles Terera’s The Meaning of Zong on the Barbican
“They know it’s wrong, they just don’t want to do anything about it”
Giles Terera’s debut play The Meaning of Zong was compelled right into a radio premiere in 2021 by you-know-what however this Bristol Old Vic manufacturing lastly made it to the stage there final yr and is now touring the UK, rigorously selecting its venues to interact them with the dialogue in regards to the enduring legacy of slavery within the UK and the methods by which we select (or not) to recollect.
The inspiration is a narrative nearly too horrible to be true. The Zong was a slave ship which, in 1781, threw 132 individuals overboard because the homeowners would be capable to declare them as “lost cargo” on an insurance coverage declare. Upon changing into conscious of the case, a campaigner (re-)named Gustavus Vassa engaged an anti-slavery authorized professional Granville Sharp to contest it and in doing so, kickstarted each the abolitionist motion and a private awakening is coming to embrace his heritage and true title of Olaudah Equiano.
Perhaps conscious that the courtroom transcripts alone won’t provide sufficient dramatic alternative, Terera folds in all method of theatrical units and together with fellow co-director Tom Morris, all method of theatrical strategies of their presentation. Movement, modern-day accounts of the Black expertise, animation, mesmerising rope work, enactments of actual scenes, the creation of invented scenes, rather a lot will get thrown on the wall which leads to a manufacturing that generally feels a little bit too uneven.
In some methods, you possibly can see that Terera is on a hiding to nothing. You might say that he’s typically too didactic round key factors; however equally if we had been to be left to our personal units, he can simply gesture to the glacial tempo of any significant acknowledgement of colonialism on this nation. Lord is aware of David Hare isn’t writing about this shit so all energy to Terera for tackling such a brutal topic within the first place and doing so with such creativeness.
If I wasn’t positive that the prolonged motion part that takes up a superb chunk of the second half actually works so effectively, the presence of on-stage musician Sidiki Dembele is a masterstroke, his weaving of West African musical influences all through the present a strong thread that attracts the viewers in with soul and talent. Perhaps the manufacturing is a contact uneven however it’s by no means lower than powerfully thought-provoking theatre.