Theatre review: The Emperor, HOME, Manchester

GENIUS of reinvention actor Kathryn Hunter brings this story of corruption, loyalty and avarice to the stage in this one-woman show.

On a minimalist stage, Olivier award-winning Hunter and Ethiopian musician Temesgen Zeleke, the mesmerising and heart-breaking reality of Emperor Halie Selassie’s rule is laid out in its rawest form.

Hunter embodies the emperor’s 11 servants as she seamlessly moves from each one and reaffirms her position as the master of gender-fluid acting.

Often attracted to traditionally-male acting roles she was the first professional female actor to play King Lear in Britain – this shape-shifting mastermind flows from devotion of a pillow bearer to the flamboyant comic figure of another loyal courtier in a matter of seconds.

Adapted for the stage by Colin Teevan, from Ryszard Kapuściński’s book of the same name, The Emperor sees the audience adopt the role of Kapuściński himself.

In turn, each servant tells their personal tale of life working under Selassie with unrelenting adoration shining through every sentence.

While Hunter never embodies the figure of Selassie, his ghostly presence is firmly in the room.

The contrast between the insiders – the courtiers – and the audience who are looking at the testimonies from the privileged position of knowing the ‘truth’ plays into Hunter’s portrayal of Selassie as a dictator with both strengths and weaknesses.

The emperor’s work as a speaker at the League of Nations, the driving force behind making Ethiopia the first independent African country and efforts to establish the country on the international stage, made him unable to perceive the suffering of his own people.

Even today, more than 40 years after Jonathan Dimbleby’s documentary The Unknown Famine, this play has chilling links to the modern world.

The spectrum of emotion channelled by Hunter is successful in portraying the heart-breaking betrayal felt by some of Selassie’s loyal supporters.