La délinquance idéologique: Sony labou tansi and the political love story of Romeo and Juliet

Abstract

The article discusses an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, (La Résurrection Rouge et Blanche de Romeo et Juliette- 'The Red and White Revival of Romeo and Juliet') by the Congolese writer Sony Labou Tansi. It examines the consequences of a focus on the political frame of the narrative. Sony's version is an indictment of a monstrous and hyper-violent political system in which the only choice left is the manner of one’s death. Sony uses the play as a means to interrogate a society that focuses on the political fetishization of violent dictatorships and nihilistic choices. With a radical shift in focus, Sony’s work also requires the audience / reader to consider the necessity of theatre and, by extension, the power under which it operates. Sony’s language in this adaptation gives the story of Romeo and Juliet, a postcolonial framework as well as an urgent political message. The analysis concludes that the adaptation presents the conventional love story as a political tragedy of the post-colonial condition.