Review: THE MEANING OF ZONG, Bristol Old Vic & Jonx Productions
The BBC Lights Up project has been supporting hard-hit arts organisations and artists by giving a platform to new work recently, and one of the projects is new play, The Meaning of Zong, by Olivier Award winner Giles Terera. This debut play about the notorious massacre aboard British slave ship Zong in 1781, explores how the story of this catastrophe affected the course of slave history and aided its eventual abolishment.
In a collaboration between Bristol Old Vic and Jonx Productions presents The Meaning of Zong as an audio production on BBC Radio 3, developed by Bristol Old Vic and The National Theatre. It stars Giles Terera as Olaudah Equiano, known as Gustavas Vassa who worked alongside anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp (Samuel West) to have the ship’s crew prosecuted for murder, an act that stimulated the abolitionist movement.
In this powerful production, we learn of the horrors of the Zong massacre, which was a mass killing of 132 Africans by the crew of the Liverpool-based Zong. In 1781, it was common business practice to take out insurance on the lives of those enslaved aboard the ship as their cargo and on this occasion, when the journey from Africa to Jamaica took longer than planned and the ship began to run low on drinking water, the crew threw those enslaved overboard into the sea and claimed insurance on those who had died following a court case that stated the killing of enslaved people was legal. It wasn’t until later when a subsequent appeal, Lord Chief Justice, the Earl of Mansfield took new evidence into consideration and suggested that the captain and the crew of the Zong were at fault.
With a running time of just over 1 hour and 40 minutes, The Meaning of Zong takes you on a journey through time, from a girl complaining in a bookstore when a book about slavery is labelled as African History but not British history, all the way back to the 1700’s and the court cases that follow the events of the Zong. We are introduced to many different characters throughout with action jumping from court room scenes to moments aboard the slave ship. It’s a hard listen at times, as we hear stories of the massacre along with prejudice and racism, and learn about how, at the time, the complete disregard of human life was accepted by the masses.
Music is used throughout to set the scene, linking monologues and dialogue with African singing and the use of a female voice repeating the amount of people who were killed. 132, that is a number that this production does not allow you to forget. This play has a lot of information for you to take in, but Terera’s skilled writing constructs a story that allows you to follow along easily and be drawn into the story completely.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Rebecca Wallis
The Meaning of Zong is available to listen to for free on the BBC Radio 3 website or the BBC Sounds App until Tuesday 20 April here.
