A New Face on Shakespeare

NEW YORK —  In 1964, when Welcome Msomi was about 20 years old and an aspiring actor, he tried to enroll in the speech and drama department of the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa. As a black man of Zulu ancestry, he was told to apply to the Minister of Interior for what was then exceptional permission to enter a white university in a country ruled by the apartheid policies of a white Afrikaans minority government.

“I remembered thinking, ‘Forget it, I’ll form my own acting company,’ ” Msomi recalled recently. “It was the best thing I ever did. When doors are closed to you, you are forced to invent ways to be self-reliant.”

Indeed, by extension, the world might well have been deprived of Msomi’s greatest achievement in the theater: “Umabatha: The Zulu Macbeth,” which transposes Shakespeare’s immortal story of greed and ambition onto episodes drawn from 19th century African history, specifically the intrigue and murderous plots surrounding the rise to power and tragic fall of King Shaka, one of the Zulu tribe’s greatest warrior heroes.

First performed in 1970 in a South African production that eventually toured the world--including acclaimed runs in London, New York and Spoleto, Italy, but not Los Angeles--”Umabatha” is now touring the United States in an expanded and exuberant revival featuring 46 South African singers, dancers and actors. The Johannesburg Civic Theater production will be performed Thursday through Saturday at the Wiltern Theatre, in Zulu with supertitles providing a simultaneous translation. The show moves to the Irvine Barclay Theatre for one performance Oct. 6.

Msomi says a professor at Natal University was the one who, in 1969, gave him the idea of using classic myths and stories of world drama as an avenue through which he might retell Zulu history. “I hated the suggestion at first,” said the affable Msomi, now a successful 53-year-old entertainment entrepreneur as well as an established producer-playwright-director, in the course of a breakfast interview at a Manhattan hotel during the show’s run as part of this summer’s Lincoln Center Festival.

After all, by that time, his Black Theatre Company, later known as the Zulu Dance Theatre and Music Company, was successfully presenting contemporary dramas about Natal township life in the Zulu language. And, amid the rising black nationalist fervor inspired by such political heroes as Steven Biko, the ambitious actor-director was somewhat on guard against anything that smacked too much of white Western culture.

But on closer inspection, the warring Scottish clans of “Macbeth” had eerie and striking parallels to the dissident clans which Shaka--an illegitimate son of a minor chief who had been expelled from his tribe--built into a spartan and fearsome army that eventually conquered and pacified a vast empire.

Much like “Macbeth,” a trio of witch-doctors (sangomas) had prophesied great things for Shaka, and the Zulu leader’s wife (Pampata) pushed him toward his goals, although Msomi says that it was Shaka’s ambitious and vengeful mother who most neatly echoes Lady Macbeth. And Shaka’s death, at the hands of a betraying cabal of half-brothers and a trusted counselor, is more the stuff of “Julius Caesar” than of “Macbeth,” right down to the equivalent of “Et tu, Brute” which the stabbed king was said to utter at his beloved Iduna.

“Umabatha,” however, follows Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” plot rather faithfully, although the spirit of the production--with its lines of fur-draped, beaded warriors leaping to the sound of war drums and chants, shrieking sangomas and leopard-skinned royalty in majestic procession--is certainly more high-spirited and less murky than most productions of the Scottish play. “Umabatha: The Zulu Macbeth,” wrote one prominent New York reviewer, “generates a kick of visceral pleasure seldom found in the current crop of Broadway blockbusters.”

As such, “Umabatha” is also a departure from the anti-apartheid literature and plays that were South Africa’s chief cultural export during the years of the white minority government. Since the peaceful transition to black rule led by Nelson Mandela, most other writers have been dealing with the painful challenges and birth pangs of the new South Africa.

Msomi--with his many business interests, including Johannesburg-based Sasani, an international company providing post-production facilities--is representative of the new opportunities for blacks in his native country. But he said that he always has been more interested in writing and directing plays dealing less specifically with political issues and more with the general themes of survival, as he did in such works as “Halala” and “The Day, the Night,” both of which were presented off-Broadway.

“I look at the resilience of the human spirit rather than politics,” he said in the deep, resonant tones of the radio host and actor he once was. “How do people survive whatever political system they may be living under? So, as you say, there may be resonance in ‘Umabatha’ to the black-on-black violence we see in African nations, but [the play’s] themes of vengeance, betrayal and ambition are just as relevant to the situations in Bosnia or Northern Ireland or the Middle East or wherever.”

Msomi’s fascination with the great themes of world drama began when, as a boy at an Anglican-run school in Swaziland, he picked up a copy of “Julius Caesar” and suggested to the headmaster that the students stage some scenes from it--with him as Marc Antony, of course.

As the first of six children born to a policeman and a teacher, he was expected to follow a course of study to become a doctor, but the reception he got for his “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech changed all that. “Such applause,” he says with a joyous laugh that seems to come easy to him. “I knew I would never get such applause as a doctor.”

Crestfallen when his son told him he wanted to be an actor, Msomi’s father predicted a dire economic future. That came close to reality when Msomi tried to jump-start his career by forming his own company after he decided not to attend the University of Natal. But his dogged determination to be independent was spurred on by the experience of watching his proud father treated shamefully by white authorities within his own police precinct. “I asked him why he let them treat him that way, and he said he had no choice--he could be arrested if he resisted,” recalled Msomi. “I vowed that wouldn’t happen to me.”

It was a tough challenge getting the Black Theatre Company off the ground. Msomi’s early attempts to find backers and a theater for his fledgling company were met with contemptuous rebuffs. Though the South African black pride movement was then nascent, the prevailing attitude was that indigenous tribal cultures and languages were inferior and unimportant. “People said, ‘You’re presenting plays about blacks in Zulu, not English? Forget it,’ ” he said.

He chose his actors by observing people in line at the invariably long waits at bus stops in Natal, carefully watching body language and expressions. Some of that same technique was involved in casting the actors for the current production of “Umabatha,” which includes cashiers and messengers who had little or no experience in the theater, although the rest of the cast came from auditioning more than 3,000 people. (He discovered one of the most critically acclaimed actors, Dieketseng Mnisi, who plays the Lady Macbeth-like Ka Madonsela, in a production in Johannesburg that he was attending with his wife, Thuli Dumakude, an actress who has appeared in many of his productions.)

Msomi finally found a performance space in an unzoned area, which he rented, and then hit the streets with his cousin in a sandwich board to sell tickets. Nobody bought them.

“They wanted to see the play first,” recalled Msomi. Eventually, going from restaurant to restaurant, he convinced enough people to fill the theater for the first performance of “My Child,” a domestic drama. He had borrowed a spotlight from Natal University, which of course failed in a key climactic moment. In a panic, he asked the stage manager to bring up the house lights and the actors continued. But, sensing a disaster, he fled to a nearby bar, telling his cousin to say that he had “gone to the hospital” if any disgruntled patrons asked for him. After the performance, they were indeed looking for him, but to ask for tickets to the evening show so they could see it again. His company was launched and he was on his way to an international reputation, cemented in 1970 with his “Umabatha Zulu.”

Given his many and varied interests--as the head of his company, Sasani, he was scheduled to address the United Nations later in the week to spur investment in South Africa--Msomi is not as prolific a writer as he once was. But there’s no question that the emergent South Africa, not to mention his own personal history and family, offer him no end of possible subject matter. (He and Thuli Dumakude have three sons, two of whom live in the United States--one is an actor--and a daughter who is studying law in Durban.)

Certainly Mandela, with whom Msomi has met many times, is a titan on the world political stage and hero of Shakespearean proportions. The writer-director says that if he is upbeat about South Africa’s future in the world, it is because Mandela has set the tone of forgiveness and national unity, most notably through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has been set up to deal with the questions of amnesty concerning the crimes committed during Afrikaner rule. While the hearings have provoked criticism and controversy, Msomi believes it is essential to the healing process so that the country can go forward.

“A lot needs to be done, and there is some resistance--people don’t want to change overnight,” he said. “But we need to grab this window of opportunity in order to integrate ourselves into the world community and show the people what we South Africans can do, what we can provide.”

Msomi believes that the indigenous arts and culture can be powerful ambassadors for his country, particularly when they mix the familiar with the exotic, and he is gratified by the success of “Umabatha” in playing a role in that endeavor. “The world is shrinking,” he says. “The Internet is bringing us much closer together, so I think we will see much more of these meldings of cultures, of African stories overlaid with Brazilian music, of Irish dance mixed with Eastern European sensibilities. These productions celebrate our uniqueness but also our common humanity.”

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* “Umabatha: The Zulu Macbeth,” Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., [310] 825-2101; Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. [714] 740-7878, [714] 553-2422). In Zulu with projected English synopses. Wiltern Theatre: Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat.-next Sun., 2 p.m. $30-$38. Irvine Barclay: Oct. 6, 8 p.m. $25-$35.