Reimagining Macbeth in Africa and the Persistence of Primitivism

Abstract

Abstract: This essay examines the relationship between “Africa” and “Shakespeare,” two powerful cultural constructs that hold particular ideological traction in contemporary global culture in the aftermath of colonialism. Attempts to “Africanize” Shakespeare may seem well-aligned with the imperative to decolonize knowledge and culture. However, invocations of “Africa” on international stages all too often rely on suggestions of primitivism and reproduce the age-old association of Africa with supposed barbarism or beastliness, inherited from antiquity and absorbed into the cultural myths against which notions of “Englishness” took hold. The essay considers how contemporary theater-making might reckon with these histories and with their lingering influence on public culture today, arguing that the conjuring of an “Africa” that is especially amenable to the violent excesses in evidence in Macbeth may reinforce simplistic readings of history and perpetuate racist teleologies. The essay examines a number of adaptations of Macbeth , some not widely known, others already familiar within Shakespeare studies, such as Welcome Msomi’s uMabatha, the Zulu Macbeth (1970), the so-called “Voodoo Macbeth ” directed by Orson Welles for the Federal Theater Project (New York, 1936), and Brett Bailey’s adaptation of Verdi’s operatic Macbeth set within a failing contemporary African state (2014). More nuanced representations of African cultural legacies and political histories emerge through innovative modes of storytelling, evident in two more recent productions: the short film In iRedu directed by Abiola Sobo (2013), and the 2021 production of Macbeth at the Joburg Theatre in South Africa, which drew on active, “actor-centric” modes of interpretation and multilingual innovations. Theater practice is well equipped to engage African worlds as sources of influence and inspiration, without resorting to the pejorative and unimaginative discourses of primitivism that have persisted well past the independence movements of the twentieth century.