Nolis Gibbs FEW hoursafter ntence had been d on Ken Saro- co-defendants, he Courtyard b Leeds Play- Fon the world and, some the lights went down on an affirmation of the spirit of resistance to oppression. The first ten daysof the run were spentin the shadow ofthe Port Harcourt scaffold, and, after the execution of the Ogoni 9, widespread public cover- age of events in Nigeria continued for a time. Media interest meant thatthe images of tyranny presented on the stage were complemented by news items, documentaries and journalistic comment. The production was disturb- This exercise in ‘class sanitation’ - based on an actual event- establishes the political context of the play, and has repercussions which affect the day in the corner of Nigeria.that Soyinka has chosen to show us. The playwright ensures audi- ences appreciate that the violence perpetrated against the ‘squatters’ of Maroko is just one of the brutal campaigns being wagedby Nigerians on Nigerians. He links it with other, similar ‘exercises’. Associations are, for example, made with the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Ogoni, who happen, inconveniently for some, to live, farm and fish on top of the oilreserves that make the Nigerian rich richer and the Nigerian powerful more powerful. The arrogance of the ‘uniforms’ in the play and the obvious alliance between power and wealth in the society presented on stage ensuredthatthe play helped many to understand whatthey were seeing ontheir television screens at home. In order to draw attention to the links between Nigerian power-mongers and multinational businesses, Soyinka even slipped in a line making the Swiss actor who toadies up to a Military Governora representative of Nestle. Had the actor been Dutch orBritish, there might have been a temptation to link him with Shell! EDITOR'S NOTE Viiatell: MoLig(| 95 is over, the STM leoltte li to the fore are STee is particularly true of the ex- amination of Ni- gerian life pre- PTTt- yamodd Soyinka’s The Beatification of PNY ALT ran in Leeds dur- ing October and Ae James Gibbs brings together Teme eli] published re- Mey own - “ete itelaeMm CoM lalelixet some of the achievements of the production. 4 ingly ippone: Not Lagos but Leeds For reasons that are well-known to readers ofthis publication, it was not possible for The Beatification of Area Boy to open as planned in Nige- ria. Thanks to the negotiation of an appropriate ‘package’, there was a subtle shift of vowels and consonantsso that the play opened not in Lagos but in Leeds. The programme for the performance describes the presentation as a co-production between the Playhouse and various Swiss funding bodies. It also indicates that Area Boy was partof the Africa 95 programme, and thatthe University of Leeds, Soyinka’s alma mater, was the sponsor. Part of Soyinka’s intention on AreaBoyis to lay bare what has been happening in Nigeria. The play opens with ‘red sky in the morning’ - a phenomenon long regarded by Yorkshire shepherds and others as a bad omen. This theatrical ‘russet mantle’ is caused, it transpires, by the burning of shacks in Maroko, a ‘squatter settlement’ that is being removed at the behest of wealthy and powerful neighbous. | ; 3 agBA ee | onthe Arts nee| Vol. 1/ NO 4 ] African Quarterly There are many reverberations from the areain front of ‘an opulent shopping plaza’ on which Soyinka’s drama, a play he subtitles as ‘Lagosian Kaleidoscope’, is played out. Atthe centre of the Drama in Sanda, employedto assist customers but in fact chief of the ‘area boys.’ In Ibadan, Soyinka describes area boys as ‘plain cut-throats, extortionists and opportunists’, butin this text he, somewhatindulgently, creates an area boy with attitude. Sandais an idealist - or he has been one. Anintelligent young man, he had cut short his university studies with the intention of making a million and pushing forwardthe revolution. Soyinka’s distance from ’Oga Security’ becomes particularly difficult to determine when he credits Sanda with composing tracks from ‘Unlimited Liability Company’ - Soyinka’s record that was released in 1983. While this elision of identities was, in all probability, lost on the reviewers who coveredthe playfor the British press, they showedthatthey were well aware of Sanda’s importance and of the play's poignant topicality. For example, Charles Spencer (Daily Telegraph) began his review ‘There are times when criticism seems almost impertinent’ and, undoubtedly, there was a sense in which we wereintruding on private grief, eavesdropping on a Nige- rian debate, viewing from a safe distance a nation in which manyarethreatened, many aresuffering. With help from the West Yorkshire Playhouse, | have been able to obtain reviews by RobertButler (Independent on Sunday), Michael Coveney , (Observer), lan Daley: (Leeds Skytrack Express), Jim Greenfield (Yorkshire Evening Post), Sa- tah Hemmings (Financial Times) Lynda Murdin (Yorkshire Post), Benedict Night ingale (Times), Paul Taylor (Independent), and Robin Thornber (Guardian). Martin Banham spoke about the production of has BBC 4's ‘Kaleidoscope,’ and he since written on it for the Leeds African StudiesBulletin; Alastair Niven discussed the play on Radio 3’s ‘Night Waves’. In the paragraphsthatfollow, | will draw attention to views expressed and judge- ments passed by someofthesecritics. Several of the reviewers madethe point that the play was written with a Nigerian audiencein mind. This was very obviously true: there were references in the text that passed over the heads of theatre-goers in Leeds. For ex- many ample, some did not understandthe sig- nificance of ‘a little to the left anda little to the right.’ And some did not appreciate whythe revelation that a woman was an ‘army wife’ should have such an impact onbullying soldiers. The reactions of Nigerians in the audience on the night | was present - one half rose to his feet when musicians struck up ‘Arise Compatriots’ - were often dis- tinctive and hinted at some of what ‘might have been’ had a Lagos premiere been possible. But, while Leeds did not provide ‘the ideal audience,’ the barriers that existed were by no means insuperable: the production was followed and enjoyed; the audience was, within its terms, re- sponsive and showedits appreciation warmly. The presence in the cast of a signifi- cantcontingent of experienced and knowl- edgeable Nigerian performers, includ- ing, Yomi Obileye, Wale Ogunyemi and Tunji Oyelana, ensured that those on stage understood both the text and the backgroundto the text. These were actors who had worked with Soyinka for de- cades, who had seen his theatre evolve and had frequently contributed to that evolution. And they were working with a distinguished director, Jude Kelly, who enjoyed the playwright’s confidence Looking at a Lagosian Kaleidoscope Most reviewershelpfully suggested, in general terms, the kind of play Soyinka had written. Thornber described Area Boy as a ‘slice oflife... one day in the vibrant and violent, cruel and colourful life of a streetcorner in post oil-boom Nigeria.’ Hemming wrote thatit was ‘a juicy portrait of life on a Lagosstreet corner,’ and continued with a powerful image: ‘anger and exasperation wind through it like underground waterways, glinting fiercely when they come to the surface.’ Butler, more restrained, wrote simply of ‘a dayin the life of Lagos.’ Asis customary in Soyinka’s plays, AreaBoy has a good deal of exposition, of unfolding: the audience learns about the past(the Civil War, for example), and the present (including, as indicated, the creation of a million refugees following the torching of the homesat Maroko). The audience slowly comes to appreciate Sanda’s ‘game’, learns of his past, and then watches preparations for a ritual. In this case, theritual is a wedding celebra- tion that, in typical Soyinkastyle, takes a surprising turn. Asthe play drawsto aclose, Sanda teams up with his university friend, the rich, well-born and nearly well-wedded, Miseye, and they moved off into the ‘Soyinka found traces of the Old ECA aaa) | throughthe streets he had Br eae African Quarterly "on the Arts Vol.1/ NO 4 sunset to struggle alongside the victims of ‘class sanitation’. He moves on’ to becomesinger and animateur: roles that are more easily reconciled than thase of ‘Oga Security’ and chief of the area boys. In photo,left to right: Ombo Gogo Ombo(Military Governor), Tyrone Huggins (Sanda), Anthony Ofoegbu(Military TataLe) TT SIT1} CT 9 fol)Oe 1iMalo)TIT“ Aderin (Mama Put) and Miriam Keller (MamaPut's daughter). Photo by Simob Warner, The West Mele uliMaosare really succeeded werethose familiar from the 1983 record, ‘Unlimited Liability Com- pany.’ Itwas a privilegefor Leeds theatre- goers to hear Tunji Oyelana'as Minstrel deliver those lyrics, but, even with those, there were times when supporting musi- cians, The Benders, were sorely missed. Wonyosi,relies heavily on music - both incorporated within the‘slice oflife con- vention’, andthe kind of ‘numbers’ famil- iar from a musical. ‘Don’t Touch my Uniform,’ a number, was sung by Wale Ojo and somereviewers foundit hard- hitting. Coveney describedit as ‘a won- derful song of vainglorious self-impor- tance.’ At the other end of the critical spectrum, Murdin, having disdainfully described the verses as ‘cod Gilbert and Sullivan’, asked, more with a shrug than with a genuineinterest in the answer, ‘Would they shoot an author for that?’ She wasperhaps, unaware ofthe way ‘zombies’ had taken exception to songs that had emanated from the Kalakuta Republic. The musical supportfor these lyrics was inadequate and the only songs that ‘Mountainsof rubbish in built- Up area’ Taylor identified a number of prob- lems with the staging. These included the factthat the design, by Niki Turner, made no attempt to accommodate shop-win- dows that reflected the violence and suffering that was occurring ‘across the street’ - as required by the stage direc- tions. While not put off bythis, | thought that the set-designer missed opportunities to suggest the world out of whichthe play emerged. This could have included the violence ‘on the other side ofthe street,’ but need not have been limited to it Turner’s neck of the Lagosian con- crete jungle shown on stage was too well maintained, too neat, too clean Signifi- cantly, the ‘partially covered’ drain speci- fied in the stage directions had been reduced to an areaof uneven concrete. A | was troubled by the failure to examinethe position of Sanda as thug in greater detail, and emerged from the theatre having found the sharp stabs of satire more impressive than the some- what romantic conclusion. The evening contained some almost self-contained sketches, about, for example, disap- pearing genitalia, that seem to have been prepared in theatre workshops. They were reminiscent of Soyinka’s ef fective revue sketches and cameacross with greater energy. ‘Don’t touch my uniform’ In this respect it Scanning the reviews, however, it is intriguing to see howlittle consensus exists about the effectiveness of the sat- ire. is revealing to assemble some of the comments about the song ‘Don’t Touch my Uniform’. This, it should be pointed out, is one song among several, for the show, like Opera | African Quarterly | on theArts || Vol.1/ NO 4 ‘Lovely performances’ Of the individual performances, there were plaudits for Tyrone Hugginsin the pivotal role of Sanda ('a triumph’ - Greenfield; ‘a finely judged, captivating performance’ - Thornber.) And praise for Susan Aderin who, in the demanding African Quarterly on the Arts Vol.1/ NO 4 |@UBNDORA review 5 SUEY S513 minor hazard comparedto those lurking / in wait for Nigerian pedestrians! The overhead power-cables on the set were in immaculate condition, and spoke of a basic utility providedfor disci- plined customers by an efficient organiza- tion. An opportunity was missed to show, for example, the capacity for improvisa- tion often exhibited bystallholders who flout regulations byillegally tapping into national systems - thereby adding to the difficulties experienced by those respon- sible for supplying electricity. Despite references to the ‘high mountains (of rubbish) in built-up area’ there was hardly any litter on stage, and, had anyone had anything to throw away, there was a welcoming (empty) garbage can up right throughoutthe play. When a detail of convicts was marched to the shopping plaza to preparethestreetfor the society wedding scheduled for the evening, there waslittle for them to do. Turner seemed to assumed thatthere were in Lagos, as in Leeds, frequent and regu- lar opportunities to have garbage col- lected and removed. He hadn’tlistened to the song. role of Mama Put, was both a determined stall-holder and a choric voice recalling Nigeria’s internecine past (Hemming cited hers among the ‘lovely performances’). Another actor singled out for praises by Hemming was Wale Ojo, but Taylor dif- fered: he was-not convinced by ‘a young man vainly pretending to be an old man.’ The most disturbing feature of the casting came near the end. The situation is that the plaza has been preparedfor Miseye’s ‘high society wedding’ and the text requiresthat first an MC and then a Mother of the Day talk the guests - and the audience - through the functions. In this spectacular climactic scene, Yomi Obileye, surprisingly, took both parts. A quick change after playing the MC enabled him to emerge in the female role, hirsute and with trousers carefully visible beneath his wrapper. His appearance remindedall in attendance that this was The Theatre, but it was a pity that ‘a good female role’ in a male dominated play should have gone to a man. The cross-dressing looked for all the world like an economy measure: perhaps the companysimply didn’t have enough actresses. Or, more precisely, enough enthusiastically about the ‘splendid space’ represented by the West Yorkshire Play- house where his play was put on. Inthe same article, he described his irritation at the oft-repeated question ‘Do youstill find time to write?’ pointing out that ‘The writer is weddedto his muse and we don’t go around asking strangers (or friends) if they still make love to their spouses.’ Area Boyindicatesthat Soyinka, while travelling and organising, has been writing - indeed, it seems, he was putting in lines right up to the last minute. The Observer article was more or less ‘by the way’; the text put on at the Playhouse was the important statement. Thanks to accomplished performers, a sensitive director, imaginative financing, and the spirit of the new Leeds, the pro- duction made a significant impact. Be cause of what was happening in Port Harcourt, audiences emerged from the theatre and returned hometo catch the latest news about the tribunal and the executions, the suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth and the cam- paign for sanctions. A terrible relevance had been born. GR DIGG) e e — — — — — — — _ — — — — — — [ — — — — < — COMICS SPOT CrCcCITIGIOOaas4y i" a @| Marvel .DC .Image .Acclaim -Manga .Dark Horse COMICS .GRAPHIC NOVELS .ACTION FIGURES -TRADING CARDS .POSTERS & SCIENCE bees8 s@G oe black actresses - for in other areas the companyhad a superabundance ofper- formers. There were under-used whites. Apparently in response to the require- ments of the Swiss funding bodies, the castlist had been enlarged to include three Swiss nationals, one of them a woman. Judgements In summingup their reactions, sev- eral critics embraced the play. Thornber concluded ‘I think it’s a masterpiece.’ Butler found it ‘generous, entertaining and observant ..., a joyous, unsentimental celebration of the people who live in the city.’ Spencer, after his com- ment on the impertinence of criticism, weighed the produc- tion up, with the positive in one hand and the negativein the other, but he clearly didn’t rate it highly. He wrote: ‘You admire Soyinka’s refusal to give in-to despair as you la- mentthe clumsinessofhis stage- craft.’ And continued, ‘Jude Kelly's production... creates a vivid sense of Nigerian street life,’ before indicating that ; there occasional longueurs and too many mo- ments when the narrative would gain from clearer defi- nition.’ are He concluded: ‘In the final analysis, | don’t think Beatification of Area Boy is a greatplay. There is, however, no mistaking the great heart of the man who wroteit.’ Wedded to his muse In anarticle he wrote for The Observer just before the opening night of the produc- tion, Soyinka described find- ing traces of ‘the Old Leeds’ as he made his way through streets he had walked along as a student., But he remarked that there was ‘an unaccus- tomed air of cosmopolitanism’ about the city and he wrote Writers should send works to The Comics Spot, behind Bata Shop. Shopping Centre, D6, Falomase wd Vheog.. Lagas. S Nigeria. my etaie % eee) =ZZ KA African Quarterly Aog ALENDORA review! on the Arts Y,/ 1/ Ni) 4