Simplistic, Energetic ‘Umabatha’

“Umabatha: The Zulu Macbeth” has traveled the world, a theatrical ambassador from South Africa, full of explosive tribal dancing and lovely melancholy harmonies that most of us don’t get to see or hear very often.

Playwright Welcome Msomi weds the story of Shaka Zulu, the 19th century Zulu warrior, with Shakespeare’s Scottish king-for-a-day-or-two, otherwise known as Macbeth, here called Mabatha. Performed by an energetic cast entirely in Zulu (supertitles are provided), “Umabatha” came to the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles on Thursday night and continued there through Sunday. It played the Irvine Barclay Theatre on Monday.

“Umabatha” has been lauded on several continents and praised by the likes of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s president. As much as one hates to disagree with him, the show that arrived in Southern California was simplistic, an adaptation that uses “Macbeth” not for its dramatic subtlety but for its plot points.

Part of this may be attributed to the barn-like Wiltern theater and stage, on which the actors seemed almost to be performing pantomime. The vast, bare space dispersed their energy; when it reached us, it was more theoretical than visceral.

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At times “Umabatha” does exercise a strange power. The three weird sisters are intoxicating, anarchic forces, bending their intricately beaded heads over a boiling caldron, then suddenly leaping up and singing together, then back down, cackling and laughing.

Dangane (Lawrence Masondo), the king whom Mabatha unseats, is surrounded by an entourage wearing fur and carrying spears who stomp and dance when he enters or leaves. They are accompanied by three excellent drummers. This is dancing that suggests the dancers’ individual funkiness but in fact demands strict precision, apparent when they stomp in unison.

Their most impressive dancing is inspired by the king’s death, an ode to grief that demonstrates how mourning unites a community so that it moves with one body, despite a variety of individual responses.

As Mabatha, Thabani Patrick Tshanini brings a buoyancy we don’t associate with the brooding Macbeth. As his wife, Dieketseng Mnisi does some beautiful singing when she knows the end is near. But she changes from a dragon lady--who tells Mabatha that she would rather tear her only child from her breast and crush him on a rock than show cowardice--to a raving lunatic with no transition.

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The play broadcasts its events without ever attempting to apply Shakespearean shadings. When Mabatha’s wife commits suicide, she thrusts a sword into her side and then turns around to show us that it’s being held there by her other arm.

“Umabatha” walks a thin line between being energized and comically short-winded. Someone races into the home of the Zulu Lady Macduff to warn her and is followed immediately by the assassins with their spears. They all exchange breathless words, and the woman runs off, the assassins following, spears cocked. Fast and efficient, “Umabatha” sometimes seems like one of those three-minute “Hamlets” that playwrights and comics like to amuse us with.

The supertitles are stingy. They are blank for long, long stretches during heated discussions and then switch from third-person synopsis to dialogue without a sense of flow. They give little sense of what the translation is like, much less whatever poetry might be in Msomi’s text.

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“Macbeth” is one of the darkest of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Critic Frank Kermode described it as “a play about the eclipse of civility and manhood, the temporary triumph of evil.” Its resonance for South African audiences in the post-apartheid transition may very well be profound. But the bridge between Shakespeare’s brooding play and this breezy tale remains oddly blank.

“For me, ‘Umabatha’ turns the dramatic arts into pure action--the Zulu traditional dancing, storytelling and the music as it was sung many centuries ago,” Msomi writes in the program. As for “Macbeth’s” interrogation of history, the audience will need to bring its own.

A Johannesburg Civic Theatre production. Written and directed by Welcome Msomi. Music (with traditional songs) Welcome Msomi. Assistant director-vocal arrangements: Thuli Dumakude. Choreography: Thuli Dumakude, Mduduzi Zwane, Mafika Ngwazi. Lights: France Mavana, Denis Hutchinson. Stage manager: Mncedi Dayi.