The Meaning of Zong
OVER 200 years have elapsed since the Slave Trade was abolished, but the wounds it opened by that infamous period in the history of this nation are still raw and festering.
For the last six years actor/ musician Giles Terera, known for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the London production of Hamilton, and Bristol Old Vic artistic director Tom Morris have been working together to bring this powerful condemnation of the slave trade to the stage.
In many ways, during those six years, attitudes have changed more rapidly than in the two previous centuries, which must have caused Terera and Morris to keep thinking on their feet right up to opening night.
The final draft with abolitionist Granville Sharp {Paul Higgins} and former slave Olaudah Equiano {Giles Terera} battling for justice for the 132 slaves thrown overboard to their deaths from the floundering overloaded slave ship Zong, makes for a harrowing evening. And to anyone still bigoted enough to think of the slave trade as a mere blip in history a very uncomfortable one.
The court cases, first in Jamaca where the court found in favour of the ship owners who claimed from the insurance company for the loss of the human cargo, and then in London where the Judge found in favour of the insurers, opened the way for Sharp, Equiano and other abolitionists to try to have the perpetrators of the massacre tried, unsuccessfully, for murder.
Using the technical facilities of this wonderful theatre with intricate skills the backstage teams take us from a 1990s Foyles bookshop, via an African village, a ship floundering in high seas, to the High Court of England in 1783. Working hand in glove and enhancing these terrific visual effects, and exciting dramatic set-pieces, is the on-stage musical director Sidiki Dembele with his electrifying use of percussion.
Between them the 11-strong company create a raft of memorable characters, frightened young girls ripped from their African homes and transported in hellish conditions, intense sometimes overenthusiastic, sometimes too-timid abolitionists, blinkered, bigoted lawyers and judges, liberal thinkers discovering the reality and horror of considering human beings to be goods and chattels.
Between them, Terera and Morris have, using vivid images and frighteningly realistic characters, ripped away any facade covering the impact of the slave trade, leaving an open wound, and inviting discussion which will lead to a rapid re-thinking of the effect the period 1640 to 1807 had, and still has, on society in this country.
This production runs until May 7.