There have been many TV productions and plays written about the imfamous Shaka Zulu, each of them giving their own interpretation of what happened in his life. As they always say that there are two sides to every story, in this case the white man and the Zulu nation. As this play was performed in Zulu and English, the producers had tried to accomodate audience by having a translation of the language in which the actors were speaking be projected onto a screen at the rear of the stage. It did not work very well as the lettering was green and with it being too far back it was difficult to read. The stage lighting only made matters worse as it made the words almost non existence on the screen. The concept was a good idea, but maybe they should have gone for white lettering on a screen situated to the left or right of centre stage. I was exhausted just trying to read the translation and found the production too long with more talking than any action. They could have had the actors moving around a bit more. With that being said, "ILEMBE" is still an interesting take on Shaka Zulu... but will probably be popular with black and white theatre patrons who understand both Zulu and English. It was a pity that I was not one of those patrons, as I was one of the unfortunate ones who spent most of the play trying to read the translation which was not an easy task from where I was sitting. And apparently I was not the only one who couldn't read the translation either.
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