Culture Clash

By T.E.K.

LIVINGSTONE AND SECHELE

by David Pownall

Dr. David Livingstone did not go to Africa in 1841 to explore the Dark Continent but to save souls in darkness. The conversion of native tribes was his task, specifically the Bakwena. Their chief, Sechele, became Livingstone's one and only convert, a pivotal event and, to Livingstone's missionary spirit, a crushing rebuke, around which British Playwright David Pownall's tragicomic drama revolves.

While the skilled four-character cast at Manhattan's Quaigh Theater becomes a trifle overwrought, Livingstone and Sechele is a fascinating study of culture clash. The opening scene is like a child's Garden of Eden. Sechele (Afemo) and his fifth wife Mokokon (Esther Ryvlin) are singing the alphabet under the tutelage of Livingstone (Mike Champagne) and his wife Mary (Prudence Wright Holmes).

Moko is a nubile, cafe-au-lait disciple of Eros, bare to the waist; Mary, a Whistleresque composition in white, is buttoned to the neck. Sechele looks like a prototype of the Noble Savages; Livingstone shuffles about, bowed by duty.

Moko speaks as a tribal skeptic. If Livingstone's God is potent, why do the rains not come? Barred from Sechele's bed, she slithers back into it like a serpent of old Nile. When he reads from the Scriptures, Sechele's eyes are radiant. But is he a convert, or a con man more anxious for British guns than for God's grace? As for Livingstone, is not a single believer a joy to heaven? Or is he trying to amass a head count of natives for personal glory? Pownall raises these questions without really answering them. But he raises them with a Shavian exuberance.

The final scene is one of stinging pathos. Prostrated by his failure, Livingstone lies on his bed, near mental collapse. With self-imposed fortitude, Sechele shout-sings the hymnal verses, "Give me joy in my heart, keep me praising/ Give me joy in my heart, I pray," as if he were the trumpet of perdurable faith.

--T.E.K.

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