At the recently
concluded Garden City Literary Festival in Port Harcourt, playwright
Ahmed Yerima said of his piece, ‘Little Drops’, “It’s the first time
I’ve been well paid for a play I wrote.” He was referring to the Rivers
State sponsored production of the play, which was staged in Lagos for
one night only on November 27, after earlier performances in Port
Harcourt. With a cast including Joke Silva, Kate Henshaw-Nuttal and
Ropo Ewenla, the Lagos staging was held at 10A Services, Ikoya Avenue
in Ikoyi, in a co-production between Lufodo Productions and TW (Today’s
Woman) Magazine.
Speaking ahead of
the performance, TW publisher, Adesuwa Onyenokwe, said this was the
first in a series of one-play-a-year to be staged by the magazine,
because “we are about all aspects of human life.” She had been
introduced to the play by Joke Silva, who passed on the text on a
flight from Rivers State. The Lagos performance was a fundraiser to
support four charities: Genesis House; a skills acquisition centre for
the rehabilitation of commercial sex workers; a charity supporting
child athletes with special needs to attend the Special Olympics in
Greece next year; and a scholarship fund to help pupils from deprived
backgrounds attend Holy Child College, Silva’s old school. N5,000 from
the N25,000 ticket price for the play, would go to each of the four
charities. Among those in attendance were actor Olu Jacob, socialite
Taiwo Taiwo, Rivers State Commissioner for Information and
Communications, Ibim Semenitari and the playwright himself.
In the play’s
brochure, Onyenokwe argues that militancy is one of the many ills that
have helped under-develop the Niger Delta: “This play is something we
wanted to stage to show that militancy is often justified as the choice
of passing grievances, yet it may not be the best, because at the end
of the day, the militancy is destroying lives.” Yerima’s play seeks to
drive home this message by telling the Niger Delta story through the
often overlooked victims: women who suffer the loss of husbands,
children and livelihoods. “It’s a female play to the extent that most
of the characters are women, but what affects women affect us all,”
Onyenokwe told the audience, before the action commenced on the stage.
Mukume
The play opens to a
hut in a rustic setting, the forest scene undermined by shelling and
other sounds of conflict. A traumatised woman, Mukume (played by Kate
Henshaw-Nuttal), confronted by a hooded stranger brandishing a shotgun,
initially begs for her life. But when she fears she might be raped, she
grows defiant and asks the would-be assailant to kill her, because “I
have been raped three times today already.” The hooded stranger turns
out to be Memekize, an old woman also known as ‘Mama’ who lives by the
river, and who confronts intruders in the guise of a militant, as a
protective strategy.
Mama
Memekize is played
by Tosan Edremoda-Ugbeye, in a magisterial performance of great nuance
and humour. “Only the gods know what they are fighting for this time,”
she says, as sounds of fighting intrude into the conversation. Her hut
is a refuge for women like Mukume, whose physical and psychological
wounds the old woman begins to heal. “All I know is that I must stay
alive and avenge the loss of the virtue of my being,” Mukume is
restored enough to utter, while wondering what became of her husband
after an attack by militants.
Azue
Another woman,
Azue, soon stumbles on the hut, a baby strapped to her back. Played to
perfection by Tosin Otudeko, Azue is a delicate combination of
fragility and strength, a queen with a naturally weepy voice that hints
at the horrors she has seen. She is the misunderstood last wife of the
beheaded king; and when her delusion lifts, she will discover that her
baby is dead – “His life has been seeping away with little drops of
blood.” Azue’s first meeting with the old woman drives home the message
that women are often misjudged even by other women. Thankfully, in
Yerima’s play, they come to see themselves as the one and the same, all
“haunted by the wildness of men”.
Bonuwo
Joke Silva could
have very easily taken the most important role, that of Mama, and it is
to her credit that she didn’t. Instead, she doesn’t turn up until
almost halfway through the play, as Bonuwo, an idealistic teacher who
is burdened by the killing of over 40 pupils in her charge. Not without
eccentricity, she is a trauma victim still capable of the kind of
humour only the most resilient can muster. “The water-yam tastes
overcooked… but it will do for now,” she says, as she chomps down on
the roasted bits like one starved for days, eliciting laughter from the
audience.
Demystified militant
The many moments of
black humour help enliven the play’s gloomy subject matter. The humour
reaches its apogee when a militant, played excellently by Ropo Ewenla,
literally has to sing for his supper, after being outwitted by the
women. The desperate song and dance of a demystified militant, provide
the most hilarious moments in ‘Little Drops’. Ewenla’s character voices
the militants’ counter-argument to the women’s perpective, although it
borders on the didactic, at times. “There was no consultation with us,”
he says of the authorities’ handling of the amnesty programme. As for
kidnappings, he finger-points criminals in the guise of militants:
“Eight out of ten of those kidnappings are not done by us.”
Where initially he
had admonished the women, “We are dying for you and you are here eating
water-yam and drinking ogogoro,” the militant comes off his high horse
when they tell him, “Your cause has become a selfish one and we don’t
want you anymore.”
Blackberrys and other quibbles
Sound effects were
well deployed in the play, such that the conflict is powerfully
conveyed, despite the unchanging ‘hut’ scene. As Mama recalls happier
times before the violent deaths of her husband and sons, we hear the
whoosh of swamp water, evoking for us the peaceful fishing life by the
riverside. The sounds get more sinister as violence creeps in. While
Henshaw-Nuttal played the traumatised Mukume well, the actress’
designer skirt and painted nails somewhat undermined the portrayal.
Joke Silva’s (dirtied) skirt suit also had too much sheen and
embellishment to pass for the daywear of a humble teacher in the Niger
Delta. The weak link in the performances was Orji Ibe as Ovievie,
thanks to the actor’s wooden delivery of his lines.
The audience is not
left out of this critique, as it is increasingly clear that Nigerian
theatre goers need some etiquette about appropriate conduct when
watching a play. This was a mostly trendy, well-heeled audience that
frankly should have known better. Yet, there was too much
tooing-and-froing by many during the performance; not a few people
tapped away on their Blackberrys, some even answered phone calls. This
is unacceptable behaviour that distracts from the performance on the
stage. It would never happen in other climes where theatre is treated
with the seriousness it deserves.
Conclusion
All in all, this
was a good opener for TW’s annual plays. Not even women are completely
absolved. “Maybe we too have a role in this,” concedes Silva’s
character, as women and teachers who failed to raise the militants
well. Somehow, Yerima ends on a note of hope. Ewenla as the militant,
Kuru, is also shedding “little drops of blood”, thanks to a conflict
about “little drops of oil”. He must join hands with the women so they
can all live to see a better day.
