The occasion was historical, the attempt courageous and bold, but the performance, rather strange. This best describes the performance witnessed by theatre enthusiasts who had thronged the Cinema Hall 2 of the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, Tuesday, for the first-ever performance of Prof Wole Soyinka’s 1959 drama piece; The Lion and the Jewel, by a foreign theatre company in Nigeria.
It was intended by the National Troupe of Nigeria to be part of activities marking the Muslim festival of eid-el-kabir for those who had laid siege to the complex in search of fun and entertainment, hence the strategic scheduling of the show to coincide with the holidays.
The 90 minute show put up by the African-Israeli Stage (AIS), on the day is, to say the least, a bold attempt at interpreting an African situation. Bold in the sense that African plays are complex and interpreting them by non-African actors on stage remains a no mean feat, if not a challenge; And made all the more Herculean when the choice of work is that by Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka.
The theatre company, African-Israeli Stage (AIS) repertoire portrays African plays focusing on contemporary and classical creation of African playwrights and authors, as well as plays portraying the experience of immigration.
The theatre has performed across Israel and has received wide critical acclaim for its innovative work. Company highlights include the Edinburgh Festival 2007, where it received good critics for its performance of the Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka, Acco Theatre Festival, where it received a special award in 2002 for its performance of The Blacks by Jean Genet.
It represented Israel at the 1996 International Theatre Festival in Budapest and toured to New York in 2002 where it performed at the La Mama Theatre and at the Center for Jewish History. AIS successful productions include: Black Netela, Bavel, The illusion Club, The Blacks and A Winter Tale.
Their production of the Lion and the Jewel was a great success both in Israel and the 2007 edition of the world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival Scotland from August 5 to 27, where they had a three-star award for outstanding performance.
According to the company, the strength and the unique quality of the African-Israeli Stage is its professional ensemble of actors and creators including Ethiopian and Israeli-Palestinian actors, who transcend their daily existences to create a community of understanding and acceptance without minimizing the difference and conflicts that exist across different cultural identities and colours.
On the evening in question, however, the performance of Soyinka’ The Lion and the Jewel, was below par and makes one wonder at the rave reviews and commendations the company had prior to the evening garnered.
It was touted as the first performance by an Israeli theatre company of a Nigerian playwright’s work and on a Nigerian stage. Thus the high expectation, which unfortunately did not work in the company’s favour on the evening as it only served to prepare the audience for an African play by an African performance standard, which has remained on the high side.
The fact that it was supposed to be merely an interpretation of an African play by a Jewish theatre company did not matter to nearly half of the audience that had left midway the performance, which sadly was a poor testament to the level of theatre appreciation and judgement of the average theatre goer in the country, who having been spoiled by years of top stage performances (though tainted by technical drawbacks) were in no mood to settle for anything less.
The African-Israeli Stage’s performance of The Lion and the Jewel, though may have lacked certain ingredients, with convincing being one of them, the licence to re-interprete a foreign work on stage still, on the evening, belonged to them.
The company made up of a Nigerian, Ethiopians, an Israeli-Palestinian, Israelis is diversity in composition as the multi-ethnicity stretches even to religion with Christians, Muslims and Jewish cast members in the company as well.
Perhaps, the producers assumed the multi-ethnicity and religion of both the Nigerian and Israeli societies could inspire the AIS cast to reproduce on stage the Nigerian post-colonial situation that inspired the Soyinka play in the first place.
“The unique cast of actors, from all religions and nationalities, playing together, represents the ethnic diversity of the state of Israel and the richness of Israeli culture, as well as its complexity. However, this complexity is exactly what promotes the passion and creativity that any form of art requires. Obviously, Nigeria has its own richness and inner complexity, with hundreds of ethnic groups, languages and cultures. The results in a special and dynamic artistic production,” said the Israeli ambassador in Nigeria, Mr. Moshe Ram, in earlier prepared speech at the show.
Then again, one can also posit that the cast needed to have mastered the stage of the National Theatre, Iganmu, before accepting the command performance as a decision to do so would have informed the cast on the need to project their characters audibly to the seemingly distant audience.
The Lion and the Jewel is a play by Wole Soyinka first performed in 1959 but published in 1963. It chronicles how Baroka, the lion, fights with the modern Lakunle over the right to marry Sidi, the titular Jewel. Lakunle is portrayed as the civilized antithesis of Baroka and unilaterally attempts to modernize his community and change its social conventions for no reason other than the fact that he can.
For the cast of the AIS, Sidi was played by Ethiopian-born Ms Fruit Mamo-Ferede, Baroka by Nigerian, Prince Austine Chinedu; the head wife Sadiku Jewish Yaffa Schuster, who also double as the company’s artistic director; Lakunle, the village teacher, by Israeli-Palestinian Mr. Kais Nashif, while minor cast and chorus was performed by Mulat Elazar, Lama Naamne, and Sisai Tekalo.
Produced by Eitan Salem, the performance was indeed a re-interpretation of the original Soyinka piece, as we see actors like Nashif who played Lakunle introducing a genuinely refined, philosophical but rather resigned and bland character than the known boisterous, confrontational and confused Lakunle. Perhaps, were it a performance for the screen, the AIS presentation would have scored high. But for a stage (African stage for that matter), much was expected by the audience than seen on the evening.
If the audience would have forgiven other cast members for poor characterization, it would be unforgiving towards the only Nigerian in the cast, Prince Austine Chinedu whose interpretation of Baroka was weak and inappropriate, along with his rather distracting accent. Worst still, a large section of the audience went home with the feeling that Chinedu was probably a stand-in for some other actor. Perhaps, the cast would have been better-off an all foreign one.
In all, however, art prevailed over every other sentiment as the company received an encouraging applause from the audience for the effort, as if it from the start knew it was always going to be a tough task attempting an African play or even a Soyinka play. It was a situation a critic would liken to attempting to win over the home fans.
It was the courage and creativity that went into the performance that scored high and impressed the audience on the evening with introduction of Jewish folk songs and to some extent spiritualism into an otherwise drama of words, of sorts.
“A person or a nation needs a vision, inspiration, creativity, imagination, and innovation. And this is exactly why today’s production and arts in general, are so important. The arts remind us of our power to imagine, to inspire and to innovate. The act of creation is the essence of our purpose and is essential to our progress as humanity.
Imagine what the world would be like, if we just stopped creating—and I mean everything- from the development of a new dance or play, to the invention of a new patent in high-technology.
Creativity is everywhere. And when it stops, we stop too.
It’s the arts that teach us how to think beyond boundaries and inventively overcome obstacles.
And it doesn’t have to be a great theatre or a masterful painting—a child exposed to the arts, learns skills in creativity and self-expression that might lead him to develop a vaccine for AIDS, or a revolutionary world policy that leads to a more peaceful planet.
We are intended to create. The point of our life here, is to leave something of our design behind, that hopefully benefits others. The arts challenge, inspire, and change people because audiences are encouraged to answer questions about life, about the world and about the legacies they are creating.
The arts hold a personal dare: “know yourself”. When we understand ourselves more deeply—when we believe in our ability to create—we see that we really can change the world,” in the words deputy head of Mission at the Embassy of Israel, Mr. George Deek, on the evening.
Overall, one could be tempted to score the AIS company low on weak interpretation of roles, poor movement on stage, transition and delivery and high on creative introductions, for a courageous and bold effort. But then again, it is their interpretation; for which they have earned the license to re-create the Lion and the Jewel, hence the loud applause that trailed the performance.
The performance of Prof Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel, by the Africa-Israeli Stage (AIS) last Tuesday, at the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, was a collaborative effort of the National Troupe of Nigeria, National Theatre, and the Embassy of Israel in Nigeria, as part of a cultural exchange programme between Nigeria and the State of Israel.
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