Things fall apart but the show must go on. Things did fall apart for Tunde Dawodu, Afrikadey! Artistic Director, on Thursday when his wife’s father passed away. Dawodu shared this with the “Things Fall Apart” theatrical reading audience at the Dutton Theatre but bravely noted, the stage saying ringing true, that “the show must go on,” Afrikadey! must go on.
This emotional beginning was carried on by the reading’s opening actor, a woman in a beautiful violet ensemble, who stood up and cried “Obaaaaaraaa! Aaaahmooooo!” The story of Chinua Achebe’s novel was reenacted on stage by ten actors through the medium of Cheryl Foggo, local playwright, and her theatrical adaptation. Actors stood up from their chairs as their characters spoke and mixed reading with slight physical acting, eight beautiful batik material hangings as a backdrop. The narration was read by Trevor, the director, and Cheryl Foggo’s word artistry came out in phrases like “the hot work of yams splitting.”
Protagonist Okonkwo was aptly played by an actor with just the right amount of sternness, determination, and exasperation. Similarly, Okonkwo’s son was played with the right amount of naivety, hesitance, and youth.
The traditional sexism inherent in Achebe’s time and text was taken comically as gauged by the audience’s laughter. Guffaws met phrases like “never thank a woman for serving your stew” and “children being property of their mother and her family is [as crazy as] a woman on top of a man making children.” More customary comic relief was found in the mistranslation of “myself” as “my buttocks” and the exaggeratedly nasal British accent of a white character.
The reading, lasting about 2.5 hours, took up themes of violence, gender, community, retribution, and tension (between humans and the divine, and fathers and sons), themes quite relatable and universal. Feedback questionnaires were distributed afterwards to help the playwright, director, and actors revise and improve the piece for its next incarnation.
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