Zong!
A Stage Adaptation
Written by M. NourbeSe Philip
It is 1781. Somewhere off the coast of West Africa a fully provisioned ship, theZong, captained by one Luke Collingwood, rides at anchor in preparation for a voyage to Jamaica. As is the custom its cargo is fully insured. Instead of the customary six to nine weeks, this fateful trip will take some four months on account of navigational errors on the part of the captain, resulting in some of the Zong’s cargo being lost and the remainder being destroyed by order of the captain.
The owners, being fully insured, make a claim for the destroyed cargo. The insurers refuse. The ship’s owners begin legal action against their insurers to recover their loss. Gregson v. Gilbert is the formal name of the case more colloquially known as the Zong case.
“But this is a story that can only be told by not telling it and how was I to `not-tell’ the story that had to be told. ” (M. NourbeSe Philip, Introduction to the Zong! manuscript)
The adaptation of this haunting poetic work from trial transcript to poetry then again from page to stage will integrate visual art, spoken word, video, song, rhythm, dance and improvisation based in Afrisporic traditions. It will ultimately be realized as an environmental participatory ritual theatre and performance installation scheduled to premiere in Vancouver in 2012.
I discovered Zong! through an excerpt of ferrum in one of Jami McCarty’s “poem of the month” series this April – tracked done the author through her website, and recently, purchased Zong! for another writer. Thank you for this opportunity to hear the author.