Ashanti Cry by Milton Boothe - Drama - Kidnapped from the coast of Ghana and brought to the island of Jamaica, where they were sold into slavery, this family just refused to accept their fate. Ashanti Cry is the intriguing saga of how these siblings, against the odds, outwitted the system, freed themselves from the atrocities of slavery, and ended up creating history in the process. 137 pages - pdf, format 8)

Adisa, the central character is not mentioned in the logline. His family is but they do not appear until P50 in the case of his brother, Danso, and P112 for the others.

This lack of focus is what makes for an unsatisfying read, at least in its present form.

Kamilah appears, previously unnoticed by Adisa, only soon to disappear having done nothing except cause him to fall in love with her. She reappears to no good purpose at the end having married well with no harm done.

If Kamilah had been Adisa's love interest from the start it would have made their forced parting more poignant and more stark the inhumanity of slavery.

As it is Adisa has no emotional contact with his fellow victims and does nothing but knit his brow and observe proceedings.

The script relies on a set of two dimensional baddies and their stock of cliched curses to convey the brutality of slavery. Indifference is one of the most chilling attitudes to human suffering and the self-righteousness of some slavers, based as it was upon selective interpretations of the Good Book, the most galling.

Modern expressions in some dialogue does not work well with a 19th cen setting and the formatting of the Ashanti dialogue section is clumsy.

Slaves did indeed escape to survive in the interior of the island of Jamaica but I am not convinced by the ease with which Adisa and his brother effected their escape and the comparitive ease they had in making their fortune.

I would have liked to see more foreshadowing leading to the popular uprising and I think missing the execution of Rev. Sam Sharpe was a lost moment of great emotional impact. As Adisa says; "This is a decisive moment in history." I take that to include its leading historical figure.

Ashanti Cry is ambitious in scope. It has potential but has a way to go yet.