Crown of Blood Review – A Deadly Macbeth Rooted in a Yoruba Mythical Landscape | stage

eAt the same time the court historian arrives, he has a new list of phenomena to report. Arokin (Toyin Oshinaike) brings news of a flying elephant, a tortoise-shelled gorilla, and a woman with snake hair.

There has been a lot of this since Aderemi (Demi Okanlawon) returned from the battlefield and heard his wife’s prophetic dream. When she tells her husband that she saw a crown placed on his head, Oyebisi (Kehinde Bankole) sets him on a path from warrior to tyrant.

Oladipo Agboluwaje’s play is inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but is rooted in 19th-century West Africa. Where in the original the witches could seem like a plot device – a way to arouse Macbeth’s ambition – here, the supernatural is all-encompassing. “I am doing the bidding of the gods,” Aderemi says with conviction.

In Mojisola Karim’s production for Utopia and Sheffield Theatres, Esso (Patrice Nyambana) is a veritable god in his pointed hat and red rags as amulets and shells casting spells on the characters. It helps situate this story in a mythical Yoruba landscape, one that makes the inhabitants seem like temporary players in an eternal conflict.

Okanlawon and Bankole make a credible double act. He’s a humble soldier, beloved until suddenly, he’s not. It is as dedicated as it is determined. He is the son of Haddad. She was enslaved. They have good reason for their ambition.

It’s good to see Oyebisi see it through to the end, without any craziness. But when he frees himself from Shakespeare’s words, Agboluwaje also reduces psychological insight. Aderemi does not give in to thought, and as the play goes on, it seems less about him and more about the social impact of his actions.

The playwright shifts the focus to the politics of succession, as the royal houses negotiate their corners while trying to contain an obstinate leader. As the throne dangles in the air, suspended in a torrent of blood on Kevin Jenkins’ set, this is a play about power and rule. “This must never happen again,” says one survivor of the massacre, a warning we can apply to demagogues today.