Transferring from London’s smallest theatre to the capital’s biggest stage, Thea Sharrock’s thrilling concept, first seen at the Gate in December 2005, retains its epic intensity, while giving Paterson Joseph the chance to add astonishing physical virtuosity to his charismatic performance as a former despot on the run.
He plays the black American, Brutus Jones, escaped from a convict chain gang to become vainglorious ruler of a Caribbean island: “From stowaway to Emperor in two years”, he boasts to his white cockney co-conspirator. “That’s going some!” But taxes have bled the natives dry, and as the play begins his former subjects take to the hills, using drums and witchcraft to drive out their arrogant leader.
Joseph’s Emperor is a strutting megalomaniac with a six-shooter, clanking medals and spurs, his mind unravelling as he flees through dense woodland, taking pot shots at his night terrors. These include working the land under a whip-cracking warder (brilliantly realised in Fin Walker’s demanding choreography), folk memories of being sold into slavery, and the dazzling dervish dance of a Congolese witch doctor, again played by Dwayne Barnaby.
Richard Hudson’s original design placed all the action in a deeply sunken bearpit, at one point thronged by a 21-strong cast of African slaves, Southern belles and their dandy beaux. Now in Robin Don’s design for the Olivier revolve, this becomes a terrifying dual racetrack with a jungle backdrop, percussionists placed left and right in full view and a supporting cast of 40 supernumeraries to sharpen Eugene O’Neill’s expressionist focus on white power and black ambition.
Although O’Neill was writing in 1920, his plot eerily matches the sudden collapse of ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier in Haiti. But more importantly this is a shattering piece of theatre with a spectacular central performance that will stay lodged in the memory.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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