By Anote Ajeluorou
When the lights faded on Nana and Rosa at Agip Recital Hall,
MUSON Centre, Onikan two weeks ago, with Nana dragging the suitcase of fortune
left behind by the thieving and womanising politician Otunba Taiwo, it became unmistakably clear that with three
successfully produced Broadway-style Musical Theatres, Nigeria has joined this
elite club of world culture producers. Musicals are tasking by nature,
particularly so in a clime that puts little premium on cultural production much
less offer sponsorship. But thanks to MUSON Music Festival 2014, a new Broadway
Musical has been added to the two already existing.
And this is huge
bonus for the paltry audience that theatre attracts in the country, and a
salute to the indomitable spirit of theatre producers and directors working
magic in a sector that demands so much. And so from Saro the Musical to Kakadu and
now Jagua Nana, Nigeria’s musical
theatre culture has taken a firm root. These three musical theatres (a combination
or blend of music performance and drama on stage) are sufficient to put Nigeria
on the map of that theatre genre if only sponsorship would be forthcoming as it
should, as they provide a new direction of cultural diversity and production in
the country.
From Saro the Musical that charts the career
path of four young Saro youths set on a musical journey and arrives in Lagos to
try their luck to Kakadu’s amazing
life – club life, music, relationship - in Lagos in the 1960s up till the civil
war years that tore the country apart and now Jagua Nana, the fabled woman that is every man’s dream, an enchantress
and goddess of romance vainly trying to find some sort of anchorage to her
life; these are the new theatrical offerings beckoning for a wider audience and
exposure outside of Lagos and even Nigeria.
Directed by Wole
Oguntokun, founder of Renegade Theatre that initiated Theatre@Terra, Jagua Nana an adaptation of Cyprian
Ekwensi’s novella of the same name is the story of a street-wise woman, who,
not being able to have a child, leaves her marital home for the glittering city
of Lagos for the good life she’d heard so much about. Her story is also the
story of Nigeria’s early days, the good living, how ambitions easily
materialize or collapse depending on which side you look.
First encounter with
Nana (Ashionye Michelle Raccah) in her apartment with her friend, Rosa (Dolapo
Ogunwale), is a give-away of their type, as women of dalliance, with an eye for
men with deep pockets. But when Freddie (Olarotimi Fakunle) walks into Nana’s
room asking her to accompany him to a seminar that would increase his career
prospects, it’s clear the two are a mismatch, with Nana insisting on going to
the club after the seminar as appeasement. This is where and how Freddie finds
out who Nana truly is, as a woman far above his means; she just wants to keep him
as insurance against her misadventure with men.
Nana loves the life
of glamour, which only men with means can provide her. So she flirts from one
man to yet another; it becomes a strain on Freddie, whose ambition is to go
abroad to study law and settle, but he lacks the means to do so. Then Nana
promises to send him to London to study if only he will return to marry her. At
first he agrees, but when Nana’s rival, sets her daughter Nancy (Lily ‘Leelee’
Byoma) up for Freddie, he falls for her. On learning about Freddie’s impending
London trip, she quickly gets Nancy to travel to study there as well so the two
young people can meet and marry over.
Nancy is enraged and
confronts the two, who don’t deny it. She tears Freddie’s passport she helped
procure, and it seems Freddie has played a wrong hand towards Nana, his
benefactor and paramour. But this is Lagos of the 1950s and 1960s, and life is
swinging and hot. The nightclubs, the music, the merriment, the alluring women
and the men who hanker after women for adventure all make Lagos thick; it’s the
stuff of Lagos legend. It’s the playground for men looking for a little
adventure with women like Otunba Taiwo,
who meets Nana and his is aroused sexually. They both hit it off much to
Freddie’s disapproval. Taiwo and Freddie later square up as opponents in the
political race for the office that Taiwo has been occupying, and from which
he’s been stealing the people blind.
Like Nigerian
politics, it soon becomes dangerous, as Freddie is killed and Taiwo does not
only loose the election, he is also killed. But before he meets his tragic end,
which he foresees anyway, he entrusts a large suitcase with Nana. Nana, too,
isn’t safe, after her dealings with Taiwo, as his woman. Sensing the danger
they are in, Rosa drags Nana away for a return to their original place in the
east but she is reluctant to leave even for dear life having been so addicted
to Lagos lifestyle.
JAGUA NANA is the
quintessential Lagos and Nigerian story of the 1960s; Lagos has always been the
city of dreams as a magnet for many to its bowels either for their fortunes or
damnation. Jaguar Nana, like Saro the Musical and Kakadu before it, is a great musical
drama worth all the efforts. Directorially, Oguntokun does a superb job; so,
too, is Ashionye Raccah, who performs Jagua Nana; it is as if the role is made
for her (or she made for the role?). And for all who saw the show, Nana’s
character would stick for a long time, as she invests so much of herself into
the part she becomes unbelievably fluid in it. Ogunbowale, too, does a good job
of her performance, with her soulful sining.
But at Agip Recital
Hall last Saturday, there certainly was some queasiness, at the opening scene
with Nana and Rosa turning up in their near-whorish outfits in the presence of
under-18s. Also the Tropicana Night Club scenes should be rated 18, not good
for minors. Another major snag was Nana’s transition from the village or Enugu
to Lagos. Although Nana tries to reflectively explain away Juan Martel’s return
home after he became the first man to habour newly arrived Nana in Lagos. That
part, however, lacks seamless grafting onto the main narrative.
However, Jagua Nana is worth seeing for its music
(even though there wasn’t an Igbo music with Nana, Rosa and Freddie all from
the east; Yoruba highlife tunes dominate), Raccah’s superb acting, the overall
conception and execution of the narrative interspaced with music, dance and
acting.
Although
theatre-loving public owe a debt of gratitude to MUSON Festival 2014 for giving
Oguntokun the handle to direct his creative energy into Musical Theatre, the
play should go far beyond it. That is the challenge of sponsorship, which
should come to it for a wider audience that should see Jagua Nana for its sheer dramatic impact.
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