Review Roundup: Aime Cesaire's A SEASON IN THE CONGO at the Young Vic

The UK premiere of Aimé Césaire's 1966 play A Season in the Congo, opened at the Young Vic 16 July 2013. lt charts the rise and fall of legendary leader Patrice Lumumba, whose passionate determination to free his people from Belgian rule inspired great courage and betrayal.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

Michael Coveney of whatsonstage.com writes: Mobutu appears in Daniel Kaluuya's nicely edged performance as a participant in the Lumumba government, the Belgian officials as comic policemen with little piggy noses, other politicians as life-size puppets (by Joe's sister, Sarah, at the Little Angel Theatre) and the intermediary UN secretary general, Dag Hammarskjöld, as a turncoat black brother (Kurt Egyiawan) in a hilarious Andy Warhol wig (Dag was a balding Swede).

Fiona Mountford of the Evening Standard says: There is a super-abundance of elements to admire here in Aimé Césaire's poetic and detailed text - astonishingly only now receiving its UK premiere - and Ejiofor's impassioned oratory high among them. Even better, however, is Joe Wright's masterful direction. Anyone who saw the visual flair that he displayed in his films Atonement and Anna Karenina will know what a swooping eye he has. Right from the start, when the lights rise on an opened-out arena-style public space, pulsing with the rhythm and colour of an African night, we know we're in for something special. When used in relation to Wright, 'directed' doesn't just mean mounted on stage, but shaped with a unique and expansive vision.

Michael Billington of the Guardian writes: Those are the broad outlines of a play that shows post-colonial ideals poisoned by tribal conflicts, predatory international bankers and the competing interests of the Soviet Union and US. But what gives the play its power is its surprisingly nuanced portrait of Lumumba, who is magnificently embodied by Ejiofor. Along with Kenneth Branagh's Macbeth, it's the second major performance I've seen in the past 10 days. Ejiofor gives us all of Lumumba's dream of transforming a country he describes as "garbage rotting in the sun" into a place of democratic freedom. But Ejiofor also captures the leader's vanity and political naivety: in a scene directly cribbed from Julius Caesar, we see him ignoring his wife's prophecies of physical danger and, in yet another Shakespearean parallel, promoting Mobutu to military supremacy with the whimsicality of Richard II dispensing personal favours. Between them, Césaire and Ejiofor provide a complex portrait of a flawed hero.

Dominic Cavendish of the Daily Telegraph says: Making his return to the London stage for the first time since his Olivier award-winning Othello at the Donmar, Chiwetel Ejiofor inhabits the role with a tremendous sense of dignity and sober self-possession. Looking the part with his suit, spectacles and beard, he stands at the lonely centre of a colourful, sprawling, vibrant dance of death. Lizzie Clachan's monumental set - part crumbling colonial pile, part concrete compound - spills Africa out into the Young Vic auditorium, drawing us into a world of exotic sights and sounds and mortal danger, presided over by rifle-toting heavies. If the evening at points descends from non-naturalism into agitprop - with the use of caricature puppets to denote those Bogeymen of the West, bankers and Americans - it retains a heady sense of atmospheric authenticity and, growing in stature as his options shrink, Lumumba's eloquent cry for freedom rings in your ears long after the night's grisly end.

Libby Purves of the Times writes: .. Chiwetel Ejiofor is perfect, moving between affectionate humanity and high passion... Ejiofor's subtlety is particularly valuable to Joe Wright's storming, spectacular production, because Césaire's 1966 play is a partisan howl of grief at the tragedy and rage at the behaviour of the West... The production crackles. The Belgian-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is co-director and keeps the cast leaping, jerking, sexy or violent, elegantly expressive or dancing pain and terror beneath great puppet vultures. It flows as seamlessly as the tale, and the music beats on... Daniel Kaluuya, a Mark Antony to this Caesar, is a strong foil; Joan Iyiola a touching Pauline Lumumba. The real Pauline apparently approved this production. I hope so: Lumumba's deep song of lamentation from his prison cell stays with me still.

Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail says: Daniel Kaluuya plays Joseph Mobutu, the one-time acolyte of Lumumba who became his colonel - and his nemesis.....We see little subtlety here, none of the coldness or charisma the real Mobutu must have had....The political power games throughout this play are feebly under-explored. There is something dismayingly naive about it - freshman student direction at best.

Kate Bassett of the Independent says: The choreography, by Wright's co-director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, is vibrant. At one point, Lumumba hangs out in a bar where smooching couples slink and spin. Later, that same crowd is seen massacring each other in pulsating slow motion, as the new Democratic Republic of Congo spirals into a tribally divided bloodbath - to Lumumba's dismay.... The interwoven songs are also haunting, drawing on the Congolese music collated by Damon Albarn in 2011 (for the album Kinshasa One Two) - embracing ethnic ululations and folk ballads. A Season in the Congo thus adds to the Young Vic's already enticing strand of alternative musicals.

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