Mojisola Kareem on making art for the diaspora and Crown of Blood.

Last week, we sat with down with Mojisola Kareem; Artistic Director of Utopia Theatre to discuss it's latest production Crown of Blood, a Yoruba retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, starting its run at Sheffield Theatres. We discussed Kareem's professional journey, alongside the themes and process behind putting a play like Crown of Blood together. 

How did your career in directing begin, and what led you to where you are now, with Crown of Blood?

Directing is my second career, I studied both acting and directing. I found that my strength just lies in directing, so I decided to go into that. In terms of getting to this point, it's really about just not waiting for somebody to start your career for you. I quickly found out that if there were to be opportunities, you have to make those opportunities for yourself. So instead of waiting around for jobs, I set up my own company, Utopia Theatre, and then just continued to make work from then on. From starting to make work with my own savings to then applying for funding from The Arts Council and just making work in that way.

What drew you to direct this Yoruba adaptation of Macbeth, and how does setting it during the 19th-century Yorubaland civil wars reshape the story's themes?

As a Yoruba woman, and as somebody from Nigeria, I hold that proud history of Nigeria and proud history of Yoruba land, to be specific. The only way we're going to share this kind of oral history that's been passed down from generation to generation is to ensure that we infuse it into every single thing that we do. So whenever I come across any form of material, I'm thinking: “How do I set it up in a way that allows me to showcase the culture and the tradition of my people? How do I let people know that pre-colonialism, that we were a force to reckon with?”

For me, it's the reason for deciding to adapt Macbeth, because, again, Macbeth is one of those stories that everyone is familiar with. And to take something like that and to look at it through African cosmology, through the aesthetics of the Yoruba wars, the culture, the tradition, the music, the dance, the political histories as well that are served and accept the Yoruba empire. 

The Yoruba Empire used to be a really amazing political structure. What we've tried to do with this - I don't even want to call it an adaptation - because it's slightly more than that. It's a new play in itself. What we've tried to do with this is to set it within some real life background history of the Yoruba people of the Yoruba empire. Sometimes we think that stories happen in a particular world, and it's [a question of] ‘how do we transpose it?’ and let you understand that we're all fighting against the same things. We have histories that have rubbed against each other in different ways.

What’s fascinating about the way that this has been adapted by the writer as well is that there are so many contemporary resonances within it in terms of even what is happening in the contemporary world now. 

How did you (and playwright Oladipo Agboluaje) collaborate to ensure the adaptation honours both Shakespeare's text and Yoruba cultural storytelling traditions?

Oladipo and I have worked several times before, actually. We previously worked on another production, which was called “here is what she said to me”. I think we made a decision that we want to serve the world of the play in a way that not just takes the original text and trying to find ways to match it, to find a way to match our story, to shape that story, we wanted to grab this thing and take it directly into that world. 

One of the first things that we did was agree how we're going to tell this story. We  set up a week of research and development that allowed me to bring actors into the room;: people with historical knowledge of that world. We had people who are trained chanters come into the rehearsal room for that one week of R&D the research and development. What we did was take the original text, laid it all out as a template, and [figure out] what do we want to do with it, and how does it sit within our world? 

For example, Shakespeare has the three witches, that in itself, as athat concept does not sit right within our world. It makes sense within our world that you have the influence of IFA, the influence of the Oracle, the influence of all of the different spiritual aspects of our world: they are an embodiment of our ancestors. We needed to bring all of those elements into the telling of the story in a way that allows us to own it. What is the story? And if we were to tell this story within our culture, within our spirituality, what would it look like? From then on, we went away to write the first draft.

I feel that someone like Oladipo is one of the best playwrights that we have currently in this country, and I think he's not celebrated enough. I do hope that when people come to see this production, they will really understand the value of this human being that we have within the British theatre landscape.

With such a strong creative team (Kevin Jenkins on design, Ben Wright on movement) how have you worked together to create a distinctly Yoruba aesthetic while keeping the story accessible?

Everybody is trying to tell a story. You go out there in the streets, and you're confronted by stories all the time, no matter what context it is. Every audience comes to a story with different experiences and different perspectives. So the starting point cannot be, “oh, how do we make sure that people who are not Yorubas or who are not Africans, or people who are not Nigerians understand?” I think the starting point has to be, “how do we tell the story as clear as possible for anyone to engage with it?”, and that is where the input of all of the different creatives then come to force. Even an aspect of the clarity of the storytelling that the lighting designer, Alex brings to the room is another layer of that storytelling. When you think of theatre, it's not everything that people are saying that they're necessarily listening to. There's so much to see. You're looking at the costume. You're looking at gestures, you're listening to sound: it’s an immersive experience. 

So it's not really about one thing, it's not a musical, but at the same time, it's got music in it. It's not a dance, but at the same time, it's got dancing. It's not a movement piece, but at the same time it's got movement. It's an installation. It's a live art piece. 

I was saying to somebody the other day, I would pay £100 pounds to come into this room and just look at this design… Look at this abstract Yoruba world that's been created on this stage for me to look at. Then on top of that, for me to have these costumes, for me to have all of this music… that, in itself, I would pay just to have that as an experience. 

How many times have we been to the museum that we see less than that?

How do General Aderemi and his wife, Oyebisi differ from Macbeth and Lady Macbeth?

The difference in this particular production is other… reasons why she (Oyesbisi) wants her husband to take the throne. She has a motive. It's a very strong motive that also, reminds us of the ME TOO movement: some of the grievances that somebody may well have about how the world is. This is a very strong woman. This is a very strategic woman, and there are instances in the play that are quite clear that a motive is not just about power and ambition, but also the difference here is that there's also a very significant love story that actually holds Aderemi and Oyebisi. So we have a couple that is quite clear that they are in love and you fall in love with them to the point where when a lot of the atrocities that they commit start to happen, you're still charmed by them. It takes a while for you to be able to break away as an audience member from that charm. I think that in itself is a very clever way that Oladipo has deviated from the original story.

The quote "Of what use is a good man without ambition?" suggests a different cultural framing of ambition. How does Yoruba philosophy reshape our understanding of the protagonist's journey?

We have a very strong belief in faith and destiny. So this is another area that we honed in on, in terms of putting this story together. 

The whole idea within Yoruba cosmology of your Ori, which is your head (in Yoruba) and that is why, within Yoruba culture, when you give birth to a child, you will take the child to IFA and they would look at the person's Ori, which is their head, because the head is believed to be the seat of your destiny. In Yoruba land, you can't just go and be touching somebody's head willy nilly, because that is a sacred place.

That's why when people start to derail, everything always starts from their head. If somebody becomes unwell, their head would also become unwell. In the situation of Aderemi, there's a lot of links to his destiny, his faith, but also his lineage and his heritage. If you're not meant to be something, you're not going to be that thing, almost like everything is already written. It happens in other cultures as well. Aderemi already knows what is faith and his destiny, but what he decided to do is [ask himself], “Can I change the course of my destiny?” And everything that is done within this play, both by himself and his wife, is to try to revert the cause of their destiny.

Within Yoruba culture, we believe that you cannot revert your destiny. That plays a real significant impact in the telling of this story, because what Oyebisi is trying to do is to try to change her husband's destiny by telling lies: by going to people and manipulating them and telling them to give him a false prophecy.

You previously directed Death and The King's Horseman at Utopia Theatre. Is there anything you took from that experience that informed your approach when directing Crown of Blood?

Every piece of work that you make is different, and you have to approach them as a fresh, new thing. So even though there are some resonances between both places, it's really important that there will always be areas where the stories that we tell coincide, but you have to treat every new production as its own beast. 

Both stories are set within the pre-colonial Yoruba world, but they are so different. But this is sometimes the challenge that we set ourselves. Something (Death and King’s Horsemen) is so well received that for the next one that you do, you feel like you're kind of under some kind of pressure that you’ve now got to deliver this thing. What you have to do is just serve both of them with integrity. Whether you do one better than another, that’s neither here nor there. It's about you telling the story with everything that you've got, and ensuring that you're true to yourself in terms of telling that story. 

As the Artistic Director of Utopia Theatre, what does it mean to you to bring this large-scale African adaptation to venues like Sheffield Theatres and beyond?

There's a tokenistic way the industry generally looks at our presence on stage. It's not being made to suit a particular lens: our lens. It's [Crown of Blood] made by us, for us. It's really important for me - it's not many times that you go on a major stage in this country, that you find this collection of talent come together to tell a story, but also a story about a part of the world that people know very little about. 

Three of the actors actually came directly from Nigeria to join this production. Death and the King's Horseman happened last year. Most people who came to see Death and the King's Horseman said that was the first time in 10 years for the vast majority of British African diaspora audiences to have the opportunity to bring our people to the theatre.

It's so important and a responsibility that I want to handle with such care and such respect for our people.

What’s next? Whether the intention is showing this play in other theatres across the UK, or are there any other productions that you are working on?

The show will be going on tour. We have plans for it to go on tour in 2027 so that is our immediate main focus. We want to ensure the audiences that we serve continue to be fed this type of work that allows the industry to grow and allows our people to feel like they can continue to have regular employment, because that's another thing. 

A lot of people go into the industry to go and train to be actors, but then they need regular work, so making a piece of work that is on stage for one week here and there, is not going to be enough. To allow these actors and this artist to hone their talent, for me, that's where the work now needs to sit. How do we ensure that we now start to have a whole repertoire of work that can feed people, and can ensure that people are in employment and developing their skills and bringing the younger generation into the fold of making this type of work? 

Crown of Blood runs at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield from Mon 2 - Sat 7 Feb 2026

Belgrade Theatre, Coventry from Wed 11 - Sat 14 Feb 2026

Kings Theatre, Edinburgh from Wed 3 - Sat 6 March 2027