Umabatha: Zulu play or Shakespeare translation?

Wright, Laurence

Title: Umabatha: Zulu play or Shakespeare translation?
Creator: Wright, Laurence
Date Issued: 2009
Date: 2009
Type: text
Type: article
Identifier: vital:7062
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007426
Identifier: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351963381/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315264219-12
Description: preprint
Description: There can be few recent theatrical productions in greater need of interpretative effort than Welcome Msomi’s Umabatha. From its inception debate has raged over the cultural status of the production: was it an authentic expression of Zulu culture, or a tacky piece of ‘blacksploitation’? – to use Russell Vandenbroucke’s term. Was the production pleasing evidence of Shakespeare’s universality, a gift to the colonies returning joyfully to the motherland with interest accruing? Could it perhaps be a case of Zulu culture triumphing over Shakespeare, native invention swamping and overwhelming a colonially-imposed ‘high culture’? Was the show performing ‘Africa’ for the world and, if so, was this the way Africa ought to be represented in the twentieth century? Or were we perhaps looking at a fetishized theatrical commodity, wrenched from any authentic cultural roots, and circulating aimlessly but profitably through a globalised theatrical cosmopolis? Such speculative questions – and there are many others – have regularly jostled each other in the bulky heritage of Umabatha’s reception history. The central problem underlying this chapter is whether it might not be possible to define a basis for a more objective response to some of them, so that the issues involved no longer rest quite so slackly in the realm of mere critical opinion.
Format: 19 pages
Format: pdf
Language: English
Relation: The Shakespearean International Yearbook
Relation: Wright, L.S. (2009) Umabatha: Zulu play or Shakespeare translation? In: The Shakespearean International Yearbook. Volume 9: Special Section, South African Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century By Graham Bradshaw, Tom Bishop, Clara Calvo, 9 (9). Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington VT, USA, pp. 105-130
Relation: The Shakespearean International Yearbook volume 9 number 9 105 130 2009 2219-8237
Rights: Wright, Laurence
Rights: Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the The Shakespearean International Yearbook Self-archiving Policy

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