A Historic First: Hamlet Portrayed by a Black Woman!

The Wilma Theater in Center City Philadelphia presented a notable run of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from March 25, 2015 – May 2, 2015. British-African actress Zainab Jah is the first Black woman on record having ever played the conflicted Prince of Denmark, making history in the theater world.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet, considered by many to be the greatest play written in the English language, was written around 1600. The first production outside Europe took place in 1607 on board the Red Dragon, anchored off the coast of Sierra Leone. Ironically, Jah would discover that four of her ancestors, tribal chiefs in West Africa, witnessed this performance. Jah, who lived with her grandmother in Sierra Leone until moving to Britain aged ten, would perform the eponymous role four hundred years later, as one of the most talked about young princes in world literature.

Zainab Jah began her life in the theatre as part of a children’s theatre company run by her grandmother in Freetown, Sierra Leone. At age ten, Jah was sent to live with her physician parents in England. After her initial culture shock, Jah went to school and later studied modern dance and classical ballet and theater in London. Jah says this training “turned out to be a good thing for me as it means I have an ease of movement and a keen spatial awareness, which I’m not sure I would have developed quite as quickly as I did when I became a professional actor.” Undoubtedly, the fluidity Jah acquired as a dancer was instrumental during her fencing scenes in Hamlet.

Embodying the role of Hamlet, daunting in its own right but especially so as the first Black woman to have done so, provided Jah with some doubt. “One of the first things I said when Blanka asked me to do this, I kept saying no because I kept saying, ‘Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m an African woman,’ ” recalls Zainab Jah. But Wilma’s Artistic Director Blanka Zizka was undeterred. “Zainab’s particular abilities – her presence and charisma, her strength with language, her physicality – suggested Hamlet to me.” Though Zizka did not seek out a woman for the title role, she did not shirk away from her eventual conclusion. “I made a list of actors I would like to see working with me and it eventually became very clear to me that Zainab was going to be my Hamlet,” Zizka explained. Zizka has said that if Jah hadn’t agreed to do it, there would have been no Hamlet at the Wilma this season. The minority, female-led production sold out almost every night of its run.
While we have missed our opportunity to see Zainab Jah live as Hamlet, the Internet provides this glimpse into her powerful performance:

Zainab Jah – As Hamlet from Timothy Naylor on Vimeo.

Zainab Jah, whose credits include film, television, and the stage, is currently writing her first play called A New Spring about an immigrant family where the child suddenly realizes that her father isn’t her father.