A children’s creative arts company with African appeal, Proud African Roots Ltd., is targeting children with didactic values embedded in Africa’s cultural heritage, with its Back2MyRoots initiative.
The company took children in Lagos through diverse life’s lessons during the staging of its musical drama, Story theatre with Grandma Wura at the National Theatre, Iganmu.
The performance was staged for school children from across the state, including those from two orphanages (Arrows of God Orphanage and Raco Child Orphanage Homes).
The performance, the company’s chair, Patrick Edwards, said, seeks to administer didactics to children and teenagers for the overall development of Nigeria.
Revolving around the character of “Grandma Wura” (Bola Edwards) as a narrator, the play’s plot is simple and linear – as befits a theatrical performance for children – and contains a beginning, a middle and an end without any flashbacks or befuddling tweaks. The play opens in a village, whose name is not mentioned, where it is early morning and activities are about kicking off. Everything seems jolly good until a young girl, “Nkechi” (Amara Nwoneli), is ordered by her mother to get out of bed and sweep the compound.
Nkechi grumbles about how she is compelled to work because, she says, this disagrees with her status as a future leader. She then commences sweeping but soon stops to sing with her imaginary friends – the ants. She envies them because she thinks they have nothing to do and are eternally cavorting. Her mother decides to check on her one more time before going out to ply her trade, and she catches her, red-handed, sowing her wild oats by singing, skylarking, and dancing while her chores lie neglected.
Chiding her thoroughly, “Mama Nkechi” (Nkem Nwobodo), as Nkechi’s mother is called, soon leaves for the market. When she returns, she instructs Nkechi to fetch some firewood so that she can prepare dinner. Here, Nkechi, as is typical of many children, proves herself a seasoned grumbler and chunters so badly that upon beholding a troop of ants again, she wishes to be one of them so she can have a place in their eternal cavorting.
Israel Eboh, the brain behind the performance, played a deft hand in the direction of the play. Knowing fully well that children are prone to being distracted easily, he infused the performance with elements of “ Total Theatre” – music, dance, and drama. Although, he claims that the performance belongs to the genre of story-theatre, the audience was treated to a magnificent display of mellifluence and such a riveting plethora of dance sequences. While the tempo rose and dropped as necessary, the pace was sustained even until the curtain call.
The child actors blended well enough with the adult actors and they interacted so agreeably with the audience that it was clear, from the mesmerised eyes a quick sweeping glance at the audience provided, that some of the children had made up their minds to become theatre performers.
At a point, when Ant Eater was about to make both its grand entrée and a meal of Ant Queen, the glory of theatre crested. Eboh had directed the aforementioned creature to make an appearance from stage right (the right hand side of the stage from the performers’ point of view). However, the character was to interact with a malevolent mien briefly with the audience before coming on stage. On cue, it burst forth from behind the stage roaring mightily, and then there was bedlam. The children nearest the creature showed the white feather that attends juvenility, hollering frightfully in fright, and one tyke completely abandoned his skin, seat, and dignity by attempting to fly in the face of the fauna but becoming frozen in shock.
While he had gone into adrenaline shock, his vocal cord was quickened. So there he stood, vis-à-vis the object of his terror, and let off such a bloodcurdling scream at such mighty decibels that an adult had to placate the affrighted minor. The said minor was back to normal in less than a minute, laughing sheepishly and he enjoyed the rest of the performance without any further occurrences. That audience-performer interaction is one of the qualities of theatre, which has lived on for, ages and which has its own merits. No child who watched that performance will ever make wanton wishes for fear of turning into an ant and facing that terrible creature, Ant Eater.
Meanwhile, other aspects of the performance complemented the acting. The dulcet voices of the actors were exploited by Patrick Edwards, the musical director, to punctuate the performance with music. Additionally, the live orchestra did its bit to set the mood and tone of the performance.
The dance sequences, directed by Uche Onah, showed true masterfulness and were applause worthy especially as they were complemented by stage effects and lightning directed by Uwem Ukarika and Matthew Yusuf.
The orphans may not have their parents around them to teach values, but performances like this imparts values and didactics which may stick forever in the heart. For them, and other children present there, Proud African Roots Ltd. has done an exemplary service, one that many private and public organisations should emulate to salvage a future for the children.
