October 2006 |
Click on image for larger view Fall 2006 Five destitute entertainers are at a crossroads awaiting the booty that the devotees of the god, Esu, will bring to aid their prayer for good fortune. An old man arrives and offers to transform the lives of these entertainers magically. The entertainers receive miraculous power which they must use to help others from whom they in turn could ask for anything. They can only use the power once. Four of the entertainers use their power to help four desperate but affluent people and receive promises of extraordinary wealth from their supplicants-turned-benefactors. The fifth helps a leprous couple who have nothing to give in return, expect their terrible disease. As it turns out, these lepers, together with the affluent patients and the high priest, are all messengers of the gods, including Esu. The gods are testing the humans, but not on how good or bad they are, but on their ability to be self-critical, imaginative and self-reliant within an ethical framework. Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels is one of the most popular plays by celebrated African/Nigerian playwright, Femi Osofisan. It is described by its author as “a fertility rite for the modern stage.” Work in Development (Spring 2006) This is a new ensemble creation. The theme of “Destinations” is the land in the distance which beckons. In this new play, humans, the place beyond and the gulf/paths which separate/link the humans and the beyond trade places as protagonists and antagonists. We take inspiration from the many journeys and the many migrations which have defined Africa and the places with which this continent has been in contact, including Canada. In a style reminiscent of Market of Tales and a setting which crosses back and forth between countryside and metropolises, “Destinations” begins with the story of a man who determines to find his recently dead palm-wine tapper in the Town of the Dead. A dramatic transformation of some of the incidents in Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-wine Drinkard (1952), the first movement of “Destinations” segues us through the land of dream into an extraordinary forest that separates humans and the other world, the latter home to a range of beings, half-beings and non-beings. Our man, Ojo, equipped with potent juju, the power of “say-so” and the like, heads in the direction of night. Of course, the darkness transforms. He meets talking trees, who trap him; he is compelled to fly. He attracts a companion, a willful young woman, who refuses the groom imposed on her by her parents and mistakenly falls into the hands of “the Complete Gentleman”— a skull masquerading as a handsome young man. When Ojo and his companion, Aina, eventually reach the Country of the Dead, the palm-wine tapper has long become a landed citizen and he loves the privileges of his new home. The ex-tapper rewards the couple with a boon, a magical egg, which, if used properly, will furnish Ojo all the palm-wine he and his townspeople will ever need. But will Ojo and Aina use their egg well? Ojo has been in a major dream. The second half of “Destinations” finds us in the company of Zenait, who is sitting with her mother, Alem, beside the fireplace in a medium-scale Canadian home. She is asking her mother why she ran away from her home in Eritrea to Nairobi, the city that never sleeps: “Where else did you go?” To this question, Alem enigmatically replies, “I became Zulu.” Alem relives her encounter with Takesure, a guerilla from South Africa, on a mission in ANC’s friendly frontline states. How Alem, a thorough Eritrean becomes Zulu, and how Zenait ends up Canadian is the drama of the second half of “Destinations.” This second half of “Destinations” is conceived as a journey into dawn. |
