The National Theatre have announced their new season including Chiwetel Ejiofor in Everyman. I last saw Ejiofor in The Young Vic's astonishing A Season In The Congo here revisited.
A Season in The Congo At The Young Vic Thursday 11th July 2013
The lights go down suddenly suggesting a tropical power cut and we find ourselves in The Congo as independence dawns. Seated cabaret style in a drained swimming pool with oil drums for tables, The Young Vic is merrily festooned with strings of coloured bulbs, evoking the bright exhalation of independence that too soon will dim to the sinister terror of Mobutu's Zaire.
But that's all in the future and A Season In The Congo begins as independence springs.
Written in 1966 by Aimé Césaire the play recounts the tragic trajectory of Congo's first president Patrice Lumumba deposed in a coup after just twelve weeks in office.
Sporting a crisp parting and perfectly pressed trousers we first meet Chiwetel Ejiofor as Lumumba as a charismatic travelling salesman hawking beer rather than Pan Africanism. With a restless energy and gift for oratory it's clear he is destined for bigger things than beer.
Cheered on by a cast costumed in juxtaposed wax prints with army fatigues, Lumumba's legend grows as does Ejiofor's, inhabiting the role here with conviction as he rebukes the departing Belgians for making "laundry boys" of men and promising to "straighten every crooked thing." Singing a lullaby to his wife he picks sweet guitar lines to soothe her nightmares, but far away rumbles of the changing season and Lumumba's peripeteia can be heard.
Weaving puppetry and music brilliantly into the narrative the direction is as dapper as Lumumba himself, whilst Daniel Kuluuya becomes genuinely menacing as Mobutu and Ejiofor seems to surpass himself with every role.
In a closing scene of gravitas, Lumumba's former friends sit at a table suggesting the last supper and silently pass a plastic basin washing his assassination from their hands and so concluding our tumultuous season in The Congo.
A Season in The Congo At The Young Vic Thursday 11th July 2013
The lights go down suddenly suggesting a tropical power cut and we find ourselves in The Congo as independence dawns. Seated cabaret style in a drained swimming pool with oil drums for tables, The Young Vic is merrily festooned with strings of coloured bulbs, evoking the bright exhalation of independence that too soon will dim to the sinister terror of Mobutu's Zaire.
But that's all in the future and A Season In The Congo begins as independence springs.
Written in 1966 by Aimé Césaire the play recounts the tragic trajectory of Congo's first president Patrice Lumumba deposed in a coup after just twelve weeks in office.
Sporting a crisp parting and perfectly pressed trousers we first meet Chiwetel Ejiofor as Lumumba as a charismatic travelling salesman hawking beer rather than Pan Africanism. With a restless energy and gift for oratory it's clear he is destined for bigger things than beer.
Cheered on by a cast costumed in juxtaposed wax prints with army fatigues, Lumumba's legend grows as does Ejiofor's, inhabiting the role here with conviction as he rebukes the departing Belgians for making "laundry boys" of men and promising to "straighten every crooked thing." Singing a lullaby to his wife he picks sweet guitar lines to soothe her nightmares, but far away rumbles of the changing season and Lumumba's peripeteia can be heard.
Weaving puppetry and music brilliantly into the narrative the direction is as dapper as Lumumba himself, whilst Daniel Kuluuya becomes genuinely menacing as Mobutu and Ejiofor seems to surpass himself with every role.
In a closing scene of gravitas, Lumumba's former friends sit at a table suggesting the last supper and silently pass a plastic basin washing his assassination from their hands and so concluding our tumultuous season in The Congo.
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