By Anote Ajeluorou
Man is a creation of acute insecurity. That is
why he relies on the help of forces, sometimes supernatural, sometimes plain
ordinary, beyond outside of himself just to get by. It is this interventionist
reliance on outside forces that breeds in him hope for a better tomorrow so he
could realise the secret dreams he constantly nurtures. This is what Ahmed
Yerima conjures up in his pidgin play Lottery
Ticket that was recently staged at the grass lawn theatre of The Ethnic
Heritage Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos, by Joshua Alabi-led Kininso Concept Production.
One easy way of getting lifted out of
poverty could be through gambling just as it can also mire one in deep poverty
as well. But lottery is usually promoted as a harmless gambling habit - raised
hope for the dream money one cannot ordinarily make at a work-a-day enterprise.
And so Landlord (Opeyemi Dada), Baba Tailor (Yemi Adebiyi), Yellow Fever
(Oladapo Jubril), Danger (Julius Obende) and Mama Lizi (Angela Peters), are all
addicted to this instant passport out of poverty. Who wins this
one-in-a-lifetime instant wealth jackpot?
Mama Lizi works hard at her restaurant
with her daughter, Lizi (Bodunrin Afolabi), helping out, but Lizi is the
village belle at the centre of Landlord and Danger’s erotic imagination.
Landlord’s wife had abandoned him for a soldier; Landlord wants Lizi to inject
new life and blood into his old veins. He needs to win to be able to stake a
proper claim to Lizi. Danger is the regular street urchin called area boy who ‘collects’ what does not
belong to him if he approaches you nicely and you refuse to oblige. Lizi is his
woman, but he has another. He needs to win to be able to send her to Abuja and
set her up in a trade, but he doesn’t want to leave Lagos. It’s the
headquarters of area boys where
business is booming.
Tailor is diagnosed of so many illnesses
it’s a wonder he is still alive. He’s deeply in debt and needs to settle his
hospital bills and continue his treatment. He needs the lottery money more than
anyone else. Mama Lizi is not left out in the jackpot dream. She wants to move
to Ajegunle and set up a shop she can call her own that would give her business
proper leverage away from greedy Lagos landlords.
The stage is set. When the result is
announced, Tailor wins. But at that moment of shouting out his joy, he
collapses and faints. But his friends take him for dead. They are scared but
act fast; Mama Lizi doesn’t want a dead man at her restaurant, so they prop him
up as having fallen asleep after a heavy meal. Negotiations about who inherits
Baba Tailor’s lottery ticket ensue.
Landlord
offered Tailor N50 to buy drink, but he turns round and claims it was a loan
and so he is entitled to half the share of the N1 million jackpot. Others
protest it, but Landlord isn’t moved. Mama Lizi also stakes her claim to the
money since Baba Tailor died in her shop. Lizi is aghast; she cannot believe
her mother is making such claim over a dead man’s fortune. She proposes the
ticket be given to Tailor’s wife and children; her mother is furious. She
disowns Lizi instantly. Danger finally stakes his claim and wants the ticket to
himself aloney. A scuffle ensues; in the process, Mama Lizi hits him in the
crotch. He, too, dies, and is propped up alongside Baba Tailor.
That is when police ‘Sajent’ (Aniefiok
Inyang) comes into the restaurant in a manhunt for Danger for beating up Baba
Tailor’s apprentice, Lasisi; he also wants Baba Tailor for questioning as well.
When he finds the two slumped over in a chair, he gets suspicious. However,
with N10,000 he promises not to hang the deaths on the heads of Landlord, Mama
Lizi and Lizi. But just when he returns to pick up the bodies, Baba Tailor
wakes and demands for his lottery ticket. And they all freeze in fear; their
greed is thwarted, as the rightful owner has come to claim his lottery win.
Although a hilarious play and the actors
did their best to lift it, it isn’t Yerima’s best play. It drags ever so often
for the most part and the comedy doesn’t always come off as intended. Danger
over-exaggerates his part. Or is it the pidgin that is the stumbling block?
Would it have fared better had it been written in proper English? Just perhaps!
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