T From Lagos with love
SA audience relates to Nigerian musical with laughter and tears, writes Gillian Anstey
HE most startling thing about Kakadu the Musical is its music. A 100% Nigerian homegrown show, with close to 30 Nigerian performers — and one Motswana — it tells a Nigerian story written, crafted and produced by Nigerians; yet the music is mostly Western. To be precise, 1960s and ’70s American pop and soul. Think of songs such as My Boy Lollipop, Let’s Twist Again and Many Rivers to Cross, played by top-notch musicians on keyboard, drums, flugelhorn, sax, guitar and talking drum.
The setting is Lagos 1965. The country is celebrating its five-year independence from British colonial rule and the mood is sizzlingly sexy. “Lagos”, it is declared, stands for “Love All Girls on Saturday”, and where better to get the action than at the hotshot nightclub Kakadu. Sophisticated, flamboyant and sassy, the club is managed by Lord Lugard, also the resident band’s leader (and the show’s musical director), in a stand-out performance by Benneth Ogbeiwi.
In the opening scene, one man accuses another of having a “colonial attitude”. The Joburg audience roared with the laughter of recognition; that swear word resonates with the same criticism in South Africa. In the show the rebuke is brushed off with a jokey comment about playing cricket, made in a posh pommy accent — because life is good. Oblivious to ethnic diversities, the people are united, the party is on and everyone is joyous.
The mood is shattered by the news of a military coup. After the violence of the Biafran war portrayed through stylised moves, we encounter a Nigeria racked by spiritual decay and cultural clashes. Fashionable bling has been replaced by traditional garb and former friends from different groups now treat each other as suspicious strangers, a reality brought to a dramatic climax by the love affair between a Yoruba girl, Bisi (Bridget Okonkwo) and her Igbo boyfriend, Emeka (Ralph Okoro).
The second half dips a little in its overwrought and over-long presentation of Igbo and Yoruba tensions but the show ends on an emotional high.
The band, who perform on stage, are fantastic. Uche Nwokedi, a lawyer who created the show, calls the music, which he said is the type he grew up listening to, “the narrator, a milestone for the passage of time and events”.
Kakadu was first performed in Lagos in 2013 and a year later at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and is the first Nigerian musical to be staged in South Africa. Hopefully it’s not the last. It gives insight into life in another country on our continent while entertaining, and informs without preaching. What better way to share a history of sorrows, highs and hopes than through the emotional connection of a theatrical performance.
• The final performance of Kakadu at the Joburg Theatre is today at 2pm. For tickets, call 0861 670 670 or go to webtickets.co.za