Enlightened, and enlightening; entertaining & enrapturing, The Meaning of Zong is theatre at its most vital.
📍 Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 13 – 23 April 2022
🕖 Evenings 7.30pm | Matinees 2:30pm
🕖 Running time (approx.): 2hr 25mins incl. interval
👥 Writer & Director: Giles Terera
👥 Co-Director: Tom Morris
👥 Composer & Musical Director: Sidiki Dembele
👥 Set & Costume Design: Jean Chan
💰 From £14
🎂 12+
🎭 AUDIO DESCRIBED: Thursday 21 April, 7.30pm, Touch Tour at 6.15pm
🎭 CAPTIONED & AUDIO DESCRIBED: Saturday 23 April, 2.30pm, Touch Tour at 1.15pm
🎭 BSL – Interpreted – Wednesday 20 April, 7.30pm
On 19th of October, 1781, Charles Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, and so ended the armed struggle of the American Revolutionary War. 41 days later, the crew of the British slave ship, Zorg cast 132 of the recently kidnapped into the Caribbean sea to drown. Ostensibly an extreme solution to a dire shortage of drinking water, the William Gregson slave-trading syndicate which owned both vessel and slaves, were satisfied to claim compensation from their insurers and say no more.
Unhappy, the insurers promptly took the slavers to court in 1783, not to seek justice on behalf of the 132 murdered human-beings, but to avoid paying out. The Captain, they argued, was responsible for the ship’s lack of rations due to having sailed far beyond their intended port in Jamaica as a result of incompetence. Their case failed: enslaved Africans were property, not people, and as property were properly insured. This heinous exercise in human commerce could have passed unremarked, the insurance of human beings as “perishable goods” comparable to cattle then being a well-established and lucrative endeavour.
Which brings us to The Meaning of Zong, a startlingly accomplished debut play from Writer & Director Giles Terera, best known for originating the role of Aaron Burr in the West-End production of Hamilton. Commissioned by Bristol Old Vic and the National Theatre, and intended for a 2020 debut, The Meaning of Zong pivoted onto radio during lockdown, and finally comes to stage thanks to the Bristol Old Vic in Association with The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh.
Terera sets his scene in the modern day, and the final minutes of the working day of a high-street bookshop. Gloria (Kiera Lester) has found a history of the slave trade in the ‘African History’ section, and she has opinions. This isn’t African History she clearly explains to a bewildered manager, this is British History. An ally emerges, plucked from history, immortalised in the eternal struggle for equitable representation, and naming himself, Olaudah Equiano (or Gustavus Vassa, a name given him my a former master) (Giles Terera). He was there, a witness to that 18th century legal abomination, and just as he learned to stand up and demand justice, so will Gloria.
What follows is one of the most remarkable history plays staged in some considerable time, a tale told by a man who survived his own kidnap, and enslavement, achieving not only freedom, but becoming one of the first internationally popular authors of African birth.
A gentlemen’s barber at the time of the first Zong hearing, Equiano is horrified to read an account of the hearing in a newspaper over a client’s shoulder. So horrified that the erstwhile quiet, unassuming Equiano finds himself at the door of noted abolitionist Granville Sharp (Paul Higgins), and together the two men will set out to right this horrible injustice, and to change the course of history.
If The Meaning of Zong only concerned itself with a straight dramatization of these historical persons and their remarkable achievements, it would still be a very good play, such is the quality of acting, and script across the board. Terera is magnificent in the central role, but honestly, that’s true of the entire cast. This is a superbly cast piece of theatre, absolutely superb.
However, clearly no one involved, not Terera, nor Set Designer Jean Chan, nor Composer & Musical Director Sidiki Dembele, not indeed anyone involved was content with ‘very good,’ and so they have conspired to manifest greatness. Step 1 to greatness is Dembele, a multi-instrumentalist whose traditional rhythms, cadences and voice intertwine through, and drive, the narrative. An integral part of the stage show, Dembele sharpens tension, unleashes joy, and calls through time to feet that danced through centuries past.
Step 2 is a surpassingly well-conceived set, a product of clear vision rather than excessive sophistication. Honest timber comes to life, creating a dynamic world, from the vaulted hall of Westminster, to the dark depths of the Zong. The staging has that quality more often seen in older adepts of the martial arts, its movements simple yet perfect.
Step 3 is to give voice to the enslaved of the Zong, and if not an impossible triumph in the face of recorded fact, then a recognition of their dignity and inherent magnificence. Testimonies, preserved to this day are too easily read as academic documents, but not for Giles Terera, and rightfully so! Kiera Lester, Bethan Mary-James, and Alice Vilanculo breathe their own lives into Ama, Joyi, and Riba; victims yes, but not statistics, not without agency, or inherent dignity. No, we can’t reach back through time to right the horrible, unforgiveable wrongs done unto them, but they should be celebrated, but more importantly, listened to, and learned from.
Step 4 is to merge history with present, letting the passions of forebears crash into the worlds of those watching, so they can drink of it and seek communion. There’s no safety in the darkness for the watchers, no, when it’s time for the judge’s gavel to fall, everyone’s in that court-room, a gallery for advocates to play to; a gallery of witnesses asked if they would have stood up for justice; or if they will stand up now and say no to the continuing horrors of human trafficking.
Step 5? The Meaning of Zong never loses sight of the its first commitment to tell the audience a story, and what a story it is. It’s so good, that by the end of the play, you’ll even find yourself cheering on the Insurance company. Now if that isn’t theatrical alchemy, I don’t know what is.
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