Shakespeare in Africa
Maite Uranga
Life in Africa
Yesterday I felt like I traveled back in time to see the premiere of "Romeo and Juliet" in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. My friend in the closest village to me recreated this play for a girls' conference. Listening to the process of the project and watching the performance gave me a glimpse of what the original actors, director and audience went through for the premiere.
My friend started by slowly going through the play scene by scene. Each day the girls came to rehearsal with no idea what was going to happen in the next scene. Of course, variations arose as they translated the play into Pulaar and into a different cultural context. Romeo became Samba. Juliet became Kadja. The Catholic priest became an imam. The overall storyline was similar. Samba and Kadja both going against their families' wishes. They rushed to get married before Kadja was forced into a marriage with someone else.
As the night of the performance neared everyone in the village began talking about the upcoming theatre. The "stage" was a soccer field goal under a moonless light. There was one light bulb hung from the goal post and a portable tape player for the music. Originally the audience was supposed to sit in a somewhat organized fashion with everyone facing the stage. The reality of Mauritania changed this as the crowd circled the stage and remained this way throughout the performance.
It was chaos as I imagine the Globe Theatre to have been. The kids squirmed to the front. The people in the back on the outer edges of the circle did not come to watch the play in the center and instead came mainly to socialize. Every time there is a large group of people in Mauritani, people come with coolers to sell drinks and food. Throughout the play people were buying, selling, eating and drinking. When they were finished they would drop their garbage or throw it on stage.
During the beginning of the performance, the actresses would have to stop for minutes at a time to let the crowd quiet down. Any time the actresses entered the stage, their friends would cry out in support. After all the fight scenes, the continuous dull roar of the audience increased. On top of all this, the standard sounds of an African village in the background added to the mix. Donkeys braying. Children laughing. The Call to the Mosque. Periodic winds from the desert.
With my basic understanding of both Pulaar and Shakespeare, I managed to follow the play fairly well. Hearing some of Shakespeare's most famous lines and watching famous scenes was hysterical. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" translated to "Samba, Samba, hol to Samba woni?" At the same time I came to appreciate even more the universality of stories and on this particular night Shakespeare.
I eagerly anticipated each scene and even more the audience's reaction to each scene. Shakespeare is so ingrained in Western audiences that even before seeing a play people generally have an understanding of the plot especially for "Romeo and Juliet." This play pervades American culture in all different forms. When "Samba and Kadja" was performed none of these preconceived notions existed.
The audience reacted in ways I imagined the first audience did. They watched in excitement the secret marriage of Samba and Kadja by the imam. Perhaps they anticipated a happy ending. They watched in horror as the ending changed dramatically. They saw Kadja take a drug to simulate death in the hopes she would awaken to a life with Samba. Samba found Kadja and the audience tried to tell him that she was not dead.
After Samba killed himself and Kadja woke up, a hush settled over the crowd. The girl who played Kadja did an amazing job feeling the silence and dragging it out to create even more emphasis. The audience gasped as Kadja committed suicide and waited for the next scene. Hoping the next scene would make it better.
The next scene never came.
The audience walked away with a sense of betrayal and disbelief. I walked away with the realization that Africa had provided me a personal history lesson on Shakespeare's England.
Maite Uranga graduated from Notre Dame in 2001 as an anthropology and government major. She is currently a Peace Corps volunteer in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. "Life in Africa" appears every other Tuesday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, April 16, 2002
