There’s a fascinating play to be written about Henri Christophe, who became Haiti’s first president in 1807 after helping lead a slave rebellion that overthrew the island’s French colonizers. Chicago has an ensemble more than capable of telling his remarkable story: they’re on stage in the House Theatre of Chicago’s production of Aime Cesaire’s 1963 drama, “The Tragedy of King Christophe.”
The problem is that Cesaire’s 1963 play (translated from the French by Paul Breslin and Rachel Ney and adapted for the House by artistic director Lanise Antoine Shelley) seems intended to be studied more than performed. It doesn’t tell a story so much as offers a montage of disparate but pivotal events that won’t fully resonate unless you’re already fairly well-versed in this particular chapter of Haitian history.
