'UMABATHA -- The Zulu Macbeth' Celebrates Origins of Zulu Nation With Drama, Music and Dance Oct. 2-5 at Wiltern


Date: August 19, 1997
Contact: Celesta Billeci ( [email protected] )
Phone: (310) 206-8744

UCLA Center for the Performing Arts presents the raw, exhilarating emotion of playwright and director Welcome Msomi's critically acclaimed "UMABATHA -- The Zulu Macbeth" Oct. 2-5 at the Wiltern Theatre.

Set in early 19th-century Africa, "UMABATHA -- The Zulu Macbeth" features 40 actors, drummers, singers and dancers who dramatize the machinations behind the modern Zulu nation. The 1971 epic of ambition, deceit, and fear is based on parallel themes in the stories of Shakespeare's Scottish thane Macbeth and warrior/statesman Shaka Zulu.

Performances at the Wiltern Theatre are scheduled at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 2-4, and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 4-5. The South African company will perform entirely in Zulu, with English synopses projected above the stage. A CenterStage Lecture is scheduled with Msomi one hour prior to each performance.

The young cast is led by Thabani Patrick Tshanini as Mabatha (Macbeth) and Dieketseng Mnisi as Kamadonsela (Lady Macbeth); and features Lawrence Masondo as Dangane, the King (Duncan); Qond'okwakhe Mngwengwe as Mafudu, the King's cousin (Macduff); and Qed'umunyu Zungu as Bhangane, the King's Induna (Banquo). Choreography and musical direction is provided by Audelco Award-winner Thuli Dumakude, a member of the original 1971 production.

"UMABATHA-The Zulu Macbeth" is sponsored by AT&T. "AT&T is proud to support UCLA Center for the Performing Arts. We believe that this partnership will advance our goals of promoting a spirit of community, diversity and equal opportunity in the arts," commented Managing Director of AT&T Global Services Eric Buskirk.

Tickets are available for $38, $35, $30 and $11 (UCLA students with valid full-time I.D.) at the UCLA Central Ticket Office at the southwest corner of the James West Alumni Center and at all Ticketmaster outlets. For more information or to charge by phone, call UCLA at (310) 825-2101.

Prior to the Los Angeles engagement, "UMABATHA -- The Zulu Macbeth" will be part of the premiere season of Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London (Aug. 4-10), at Washington Performance Arts Society in Washington D.C. (Sept. 10-21), Cal Performances at Berkeley (Sept. 24-28) and at New York's Lincoln Center Festival (July 21-27).

Origins of "UMABATHA--The Zulu Macbeth"

In 1969, Msomi then a student at the University of Natal, began researching a correlation between the history of his people and the masterpieces of world literature. He found his inspiration in Shakespeare's "Macbeth." The intrigues, plots and counterplots brewed by the early Scottish clans were almost identical to the maneuvers that took place during the reign of Shaka Zulu (1787-1828). Shifting the Scottish clans to African tribes, the moors to the African plains, and the three cauldron-tending witches to prescient, dancing witch doctors, the story became the perfect vehicle to recount African history.

"UMABATHA" premiered in the open air theater at the University of Natal in 1971 and received an invitation to close the Royal Shakespeare Company's World Theatre Season in London in 1972. The production was remounted in 1973 at London's Aldwych Theatre, where it broke all box office records. Subsequent productions in the 1970s included those at the Italian and America Spoleto festivals; Zimbabwe; Capetown and at the Colosseum Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa; London's Old Vic (1977); Aberdeen, Scotland; and a three-month run off Broadway.

When "UMABATHA" experienced a revival in post-apartheid Johannesburg in 1995, Nelson Mandela wrote to Msomi: "The similarities between Shakespeare's Macbeth and our own Shaka become a glaring reminder that the world is, philosophically, a very small place." Mandela encouraged Msomi to mount a new production as a way "to highlight both the problems of and vast opportunity for change from so many years of apartheid in South Africa."

Shaka Zulu

At the turn of the 19th century, southern Africa was made up of several disparate tribes. The king of the powerful Mthethwa, Dingiswayo, incorporated conquered tribes into his army as allies, including the Zulu. Shaka, the illegitimate son of the Zulu chief, became the protégé of Dingiswayo, developing into a strong, ambitious and excellent soldier. With Dingiswayo's support, Shaka overthrew his half-brother and natural heir to the Zulu chiefdom. Shaka refined Dingiswayo's military training and techniques, developing one of the most highly skilled and disciplined armies in the world and becoming the natural successor to the throne when Dingiswayo died in battle. (A possible conspiracy in Dingiswayo's death involving Shaka is speculated but unproven.)

Once in power, Shaka adopted new policies, eliminating senior councils, ruling with autocracy, destroying conquered tribes and executing anyone of no use. He spread ever outward and, within a decade, completely occupied what is now Natal. In 1828, while pursuing fleeing clans, Shaka was murdered by those closest to him, including his half-brother Dingaan, his sister and an Induna (chief counselor) of the Royal Tribe.

Welcome Msomi

Like Macbeth, Shaka was visited early in his career by an Isangoma (witch doctor), who prophesied: "You are a man. Already I see a chief of chiefs." Later, in confrontations with the powerful Isangomas, he defied their superstitious magic and emerged with undisputed authority. His wife, Pampata, also predicted that he would rule all the world they knew. Like Lady Macbeth, or Kamandonsela of "UMABATHA," Pampata played a dominant role in Shaka's ambitious reign and had, in Shaka's own words, "a mind shrewder than that of a ring-headed counselor." Welcome Msomi

Msomi is the founder/director of the IZulu Dance Theatre and Music Company, established in 1965 in Durban, South Africa. In 1979, an extension of the company was established in New York City.

Msomi began his writing career at age 15 and has won international acclaim as a playwright, choreographer and director. His stage works have been produced in South Africa, Swaziland, Scotland and England, throughout Europe and in the United States, and he created music and movement for an RSC production of Tamburlaine the Great.

In addition, Msomi has written and acted in radio plays, founded the IAM record label, and composed and produced songs for musicals in association with EMI-South Africa. Recent projects include directing the celebration for Nelson Mandela's 75th birthday; the creation of IAM performing arts centers, dedicated to developing young talent in both the rural and urban areas of South Africa; conceiving and directing the Sonke Festival, the Siyanqoba Festival and the 10th May Inaugural Festivities in Pretoria; and launching "The Lion King" for Ster Kineokor and "Joyful Sounds Under African Skies" for TF1 French Television Company. A member of the Dramatist's Guild of America, Msomi is the managing director of Msomi Hunt Lascaris, an event marketing and public relations company in Johannesburg.

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"UMABATHA -- The Zulu Macbeth" Quotes from reviews of the Lincoln Center Festival engagement

"Galloping and high-spirited. 'UMABATHA' generates a kick of visceral musical pleasure seldom found in the current crop of Broadway blockbusters. A brisk, jaunty narrative that exults in the powers of storytelling. Punctuated with stately processions of an earthy but uncanny beauty and invigorating tribal dances and blessed with a cast whose clarity of gesture and expression makes the supertitles nearly superfluous, the show is above all an entertainment that glories in its own energy and visual spectacle." Ben Brantley, The New York Times

"A theatrically exotic, musically exciting and visually stunning evening. The bare stage. brilliantly lit, suggests the vast, open space of the South African plains."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press

"'UMABATHA' re-imagines 'Macbeth' as a sequence of electrifying communal rituals. An exciting, alive and powerful work." Donald Lyons, The Wall Street Journal

"Strong, forthright acting. How thrilling it must be for citizens of Zulu ancestry to see the music and dance, the ritual and history, of their culture so vividly spelled out onstage. An act of bravery as well as artistry. It does what any theater anywhere ought to do -- celebrate the culture of a whole people, at its most exhilarating, and yet not fail to convey the terror and the shame, that lie behind it."

Michael Feingold, Village Voice

"A major showpiece of the second annual Lincoln Center Festival, 'UMABATHA' is a spirited pageant of drumming, dancing and choral singing. A spectacle that transcends language."

Jacques le Sourd, Gannett Newspaper

"A spectacle that follows the outlines of the Shakespeare play quite closely. The performances are robust and spirited, with Thabani Patrick Tshanini as a powerfully truculent Mabatha and Dieketseng Mnisi as his unusually shrewish wife."

Clive Barnes, The New York Post

"Coronations, funerals and celebrations in the story are marked by fiery tribal dance and song that linger in your mind. Leaping and crouching warriors spring through rhythmic patterns of movement, the fur and fronds of their native garb swaying to the thumping beat-beat-beat of drums. Women's voices sweetly soar through choral passages."

Michael Sommers, The Star-Ledger