#umabatha

In this video, the narrator suggests that the strength, and even the meaning, of Msomi's adaption lies in its performance: the stage presence of its large cast (from 40 to 65 actors), the dancing, the drums' beat. What, then, does reading only its screenplay yield to the audience? The narrator's statement that "Macbeth is the perfect allegory" for the suffering of peoples in South Africa during and following the Apartheid made me think about what Msomi gained through staging this play as an adaptation instead of writing a play specifically about his country's troubles? Perhaps the answer is as straightforward as linking the Western intellectual canon to the South African, and, as Nelson Mandela wrote, to elucidate the fact that "the world is, philosophically, a very small place." Do you think there's more?