Yaaya At: A Season In The Congo | Lumumba. Hero. Martyr.

A Season In The Congo
Lumumba. Hero. Martyr.

BAFTA Award winning director Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Atonement) directs Olivier Award winner Chiwetel Ejiofor (Amistad, Children of Men, Dirty Pretty Things) in this spectacular retelling of one African country’s struggle for its sovereign right to self-determination.

Pulsing with music and bursting with evocative dance choreography, this scintillating piece of physical theatre charts the rise and fall of legendary independence leader Patrice Lumumba, whose passionate determination to free his people from Belgian rule inspired great courage and betrayal.

Though it depicts the story of one nation in one time and place, A Season in the Congo mirrors the fight of many an African nation and its leaders, for freedom from colonial rule and the inherent right to self-determination.

A farmer’s son, Lumumba led his people to independence from Belgium, and became the first democratically elected leader of post-colonial Congo in 1960. He served for less than three months. By January 1961, Lumumba was dead – shot in murky circumstances that involved the Machiavellian future dictator Joseph Mobutu (Daniel Kaluuya) and international foreign powers.

Once described as a “beer salesman who sold dreams to a nation of children”, Lumumba’s Pan-Africanist ideals were no match for the intricacies of political power that surrounded him. Chief among them was the secession of the mineral-rich Katanga, a crafty ploy by the Belgians to swiftly return the Congo to colonial rule.

Chiwetel Ejiofor sizzles on stage as the legendary persona. Portraying this freedom fighter requires a combination of seemingly juxtapository characteristics: an easy amiability that endears him to his countrymen, balanced by fiery oratorical power that incites passion and anger in the Congolese. It demands a modern-day hero, able to persuade as a man and to epitomise the dream of a nation. Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers the role of Lumumba with larger-than-life magnetism and fervour.

A Season in the Congo is a gripping narrative of passion, sacrifice, and above all, of love. In an age rife with selfishness, greed, and individualism, Lumumba’s biopic is a powerful echo from the past and a call to our consciousness.

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Image Source | The video and images do not belong to Yaaya. Images courtesy of the Young Vic What's On page and the Young Vic Theatre Facebook page. Video courtesy of the YoungVicLondon YouTube channel.