Like Fela on Broadway, Saro: The Musical made a successful debut in 2013. This weekend the musical concert will return to the Shell Hall, Muson Centre, Lagos with spectacle and colours. Ben Tomoloju reviews the six -day performances holding this Easter.
It pesters. SARO pesters. From the conceptual stage right through the entire production process, it pesters like a bundle of joy wriggling its way into life, and with it a rapturous celebration of music, drama, culture and history.
This is the feeling evoked on one’s mind by Saro The Musical, created and produced by Bolanle Austen-Peters and scripted by Seun Kentebe and Thomas Odia.
It has been showcased twice between 2013 and 2014. It made its debut at the grand ballroom of Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island the year before. The second outing, titled: Saro The Musical 2, took place during the last yuletide with a clear evidence of the progressive imagination of a creative visioner.
The object of this piece is essentially the sustainability of quality cultural expression of which Saro The Musical is a reference point, but not without a piquant exposition of content and style.
‘Saro’ explores the odyssey of Brazilian returnees after the abolition of slavery and slave-trade in the mid-19th Century. The returnees migrated from Sierra Leone to Lagos.
Etymologically, ‘Saro’ is a Yoruba derivation from the ‘Sierra’, which also explains the historical fact that there is a thriving Yoruba community in Sierra Leone with some members bearing original Yoruba names up till this day.
According to the lead character, a culture connoisseur and unofficial historian, Don Ceeto: ‘We are Saro descendants. In the beginning of the 1830s, our forefathers were freed slaves who migrated from Sierra Leone to Nigeria. Most of them were well-trained and experienced in medicine, law and the civil service whilst in Sierra Leone….When they arrived, they settled in Ebute-Metta, Yaba and Olowogbowo….The Saros were known for their travel in pursuit of freedom and commercial opportunity.’
The expose went on with details of the elitism and cosmopolitanism that characterise this breed of Nigerians, summing up the thematic thrust of the creative exploration.
What follows is a dramatic quest, a country-to-city migration of four musically-gifted village boys – Laitan, Azeez, Efe and Obaro – in search of the golden fleece in Lagos City.
In the city, they are dazzled by the ritzy cityscape, the hustle and bustle and, of course, the menacing culture-shock that lands them right in the midst of pimps, pick-pockets, prostitutes, area-boys and all manners of social derelicts. In one swoop of a comically enacted raid, they end up in a police-cell. Right there in the cell, they raise their voices in an exciting, self-consolatory rendition of Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy.’ And this turns out to be providential.
Don Ceeto, the dreamer, visioner and benevolent godfather is around to bail out one of his boys from the cell. The song filters to his hearing. Deeply impressed, he also bails out the village quartet, takes them into his creative custody and grooms them for his dream-musical project, SARO.
Between the odyssey of the Saros and the village-to-city migration of the quartet, Don Ceeto identifies a historical parallel, underscored by the drive for self-actualisation through vintage cultural expression. The main vehicle, this time around, is music, while other forms of art – dramatic and spectacular – fall in place in the unfolding plot.
Don Ceeto grooms the boys in his studio. He discovers that even his own secretary, Jane, is also a fantastic singer and co-opts her into the group. Don is crazy about talents. He has an eye for excellence. He brooks no nonsense, not even from his own pampered, overbearing daughter, Ronke. He exposes the boys to a broad spectrum of Lagos life – secular and spiritual – to bring them to fullest terms with his ideology. He hones their skill to be at par with the sophistication which his new vision of cosmopolitan African culture represents.
Thereafter, the young singers are replete with confidence and, in contemporary parlance, one of them interjects the conversations with, ‘We don blow!’
The show, from curtain-rise to curtain-call, was a titillating interplay of sight and sound, rich, whimsical dialogue and comic relief. No dull moment.
It opened with a dance exposition, complemented by colourful costumes – red on black and an aerial pattern toned with a curvilinear play on fans – which was as symbolic as it brought to mind an aesthete’s religion of beauty.
Through this the music flowed. It flowed from the folk-songs of the Delta to Yoruba Bata merged with a pan-Nigerian dance and musical revue woven into the afro-fusion effect of Lagbaja’s ‘Africalypso’.
Africa, in its idyllic setting, was projected on the big screen on the cyclorama showing a serene, romantic Kutuenji (the quartet’s village). The raw talent of the village singers was displayed against this background in a local festival. So was the scene involving the parting of two love-birds, Laitan and Rume, as they delivered the hair-raising song ‘Ma Gbagbe Mi’ (Don’t Forget Me), backed by the polyphonic orchestration of a compact chorus.
One song sailed into another with unbridled fluidity from the boundless repertoire of Nigerian music; highlife, juju, apala, and a medley of contemporary pop.
Scenes dissolved, one into another introducing new segments. Lagos welcomed the village boys with a bold projection of ‘Baba Meta’, the iconic statue of three white-cap chiefs that adorn the Lagos State Gateway at Alausa. At other points, it was either the high-rise buildings or a legion of yellow-buses that depicted on the big-screen the peculiarities of Lagos in sympathetic correlation with the action on stage. There were several other pictures projected and, in turns, they heightened the visual appeal of the presentation.
Actions, in Saro, were so pacy, varied and variegated that members of the audience were sometimes propelled to the edges of their seats. Songs were enchanting, dances scintillating. The music was pulsating, just as the acrobatics were spectacular.
From ordinary sketches to full-blown enactments, the dramatic elements made compelling statements about our cultural reality, its delicate mix and variety. Religion found a place in it, as Jane’s church choir, later joined by the quartet, treated the audience to soul-lifting performances of ‘Jesus Na You Be Oga’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’.
Then came the show-stopper before the show-stopper, a performance of John Legend’s ‘All For Me’, remixed by Kunle Ogunrombi. With dynamic showmanship and vocal dexterity, the singer opened with the original western pop and suddenly adapts it to a throbbing, syncopative and dance-effective Fuji idiom. The applause was deafening.
But the ultimate show-stopper was the performance of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s ‘Water No Get Enemy’. The MC’s line whet the appetite. The introduction of the act tuned the musical palate to salivate on a special dish from a grand-master. And, at the mention of ‘Fela’, there was a mirthful explosion our hilarity, whistling, hooting, cat-calls and hauling of ‘Eleniyan!’, synchronised with the fire-effect on the massive screen. The horns led the way with their tuneful harmony, followed by throbbing beats from African drums and the dialogue of the strings. Then spritelike dance-maidens stepped in, wiggling their waists in electrifying waves. The rest was the climax of an evening entertainment that led you to a soothing dream.
But behind these well-deserved was a lot of hard-work. There were well over a hundred members of cast and crew in the ensemble and the skills they displayed were buoyant. From the majors to the minors and extending to the technical personnel there was clear evidence of the essential synergy.
The quartet, Azeez (Paul Alumona/Frank Konwah), Laitan (Patrick Duabua), Efe (Paulo Sisiano) and Obaro (Gideon Okeke) evinced such ebullience and versatility that places them in the ranks of total performers, follow-ups to Nigerian classic examples like Jimi Solanke, Tunji Oyelana and Tunji Sotimirin. The same applies to petit and vibrant Adejoke Laoye who brilliantly performed the role of Jane in dual capacity of actor and singer.
All said, except for a snappy instance of distractive mannerism by Efe and Ronke, an unguarded drift of the follow-spot and intrusive puff of the smoke-effect, the entire package was phenomenal. Team-spirit was taut and indicative of the qualitative pliability of individual talent.
A very important point to note in SARO is the input of a new generation of directors; Kenneth Uphopho (Drama), Yusuf Gbenga (Dance), Ayo Ajayi (Music), their very able Stage-manager, Ibukun Fasuhan and Costumier, Juliana Dede. These young thespians not only showed their resourcefulness and accomplishment on the big stage, they also leave one with the confidence that a brighter future awaits Nigerian theatre given the right kind of encouragement and support.
At the peak of it all, the commanding presence of Dolapo Ogunwale (Producer) and Bimbo Manuel was nothing less than edifying. The duo brought on stage robust experiences in oral communication, through sound and compelling elocution as well as spontaneity in speech and action where the occasion demanded it. Manuel’s stage charisma was a delight. It matched effectively the scripted role of the man in control, Don Ceeto, the captain in an artistic voyage who effortlessly stitched one scene to another with the proficiency of a master.
On that uplifting note, Saro The Musical 2 lived up to its billing. The audience could only shout ‘Encore’.
That ‘encore’ should come. A classy piece like Saro should enjoy optimal presentation. Its viability is already vindicated in virtually every department of theatre production, so much that government, the business community and other interest groups can tap into it for all the relevant promotional objectives.
*Tomoloju is the former Deputy Editor,The Guardian, Lagos.
