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The Review - THEATRE by GEOFFREY SAWYER
Published: 6 September 2007

The Emperor’s return

EMPEROR JONES
National Theatre

THIS is a story of a journey – in many more ways than one. It began as an idea cobbled together from barroom anecdotes and popular history and became one of the iconic plays of the 20th century.
Only Eugene O’Neill’s second play as a professional writer, Emperor Jones tells of a man’s journey from the darkness of race and class-ridden early 20th-century America to his personal hell in the jungles of a Caribbean island.
Loosely based on Haitian King Henri Christophe, killed by a silver bullet, it poses the human and political questions that are the stamp of one of history’s greatest playwrights.
Chain-gang escapee Brutus Jones has the fortune to install himself as Emperor of the island but corrupted by years as a steward, bowing and scraping to the wealthy elite, and then under the whip-hand of the gang-master, he ruthlessly exploits “dem fool bush niggers”.
When revolution brews he flees his palace but becomes trapped in the jungle. There he’s driven mad by the ghosts of his past – the men he murdered, the chain-gang – and those of black America’s collective memory of slavery.
Emperor Jones opened in 1920 on Broadway at a time when black veterans of the First World War were challenging racism and there was a renaissance of black writers and musicians.
It ran for two years and when its star Charles S Gilpin suffered the race-bar at a dinner, O’Neill walked out in protest. O’Neill won four Pulitzer’s and Nobel prizes, and Emperor Jones was played by some of the greats, including Paul Robeson.
In this production it is Paterson Joseph who steals the show with his swaggering depiction of Brutus the Emperor and the madman.
Thea Sharrock directed it at the compact Gate Theatre and transferred it to the cavernous Olivier.
On the way it’s gone from being staged in a claustrophobic sarcophagus to a huge revolving stage with breathtaking music and dance.
It’s a bold idea for a big theatre, the only drawback is that the fabulous showpiece loses some of O’Neill’s simple idea: that Emperor Jones wasn’t just a black escapee bent out of shape by a corrupt society, but is anyone, in any place at any time.
It’s a production that will strike a note with many.
What a shame, despite being just 70 minutes and the availability of £10 Travelex seats, that schools don’t seem to be taking their pupils on a journey to the National to see it.
Until October 31

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