By Anote Ajeluorou
Like Elder Fred Agbeyegbe and Mr. Uche
Nwokedi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Wole Oguntokun is another trained
lawyer who fell in love with the theatre, but unlike the other two, he
effectively abandoned his wig. And for over a decade now, he has made a mark in
Nigeria’s struggling theatre scene. But rather than bemoan the lack of tools,
the stock in trade of a bad workman, like purpose-built theatres, since
managers of the country’s cultural edifice, the National Theatre, have failed
to put the edifice to good theatric use, Oguntokun has taken the bold initiative
to build one at Lekki.
He calls it The Theatre Republic
and it opens in December. The motivation to deepen Nigeria’s cultural
landscape, he said among others things, informed the new theatre space due to
open in two months.
“The Theatre Republic
will be open to the public by December this year,” he announced excitedly. “It
will be a Christmas present to the city of Lagos. At present, there
is no single venue in Nigeria with daily programming dedicated solely to
the performing arts.
“It is our desire to create a
self-sustaining performing arts organisation that will encourage copycat
establishments around the country, which in turn, would help artistes realise
their own artistic visions and thus create the ability in them to effect
positive change in their individual communities.
“The Theatre Republic hopes to become part of a strong lobby that
continually sensitises government to the importance of the sustenance of
culture for the good of the country as well as the development of strategic
policies in this regard, and to the essence of arts education among young people.
A country without culture has no democracy!
I repeat, ‘A country without culture has no democracy.’
“The venue will serve as a
beacon to emerging performing art organisations to help them reach a position
where they have options of international collaborators and producing models.
“It will also help raise the
performing arts industry in Nigeria to levels where Nigerian companies can grow
networks, have access to international platforms and command the respect that
multilateral access to the world can give them.
“One of our objectives is to see
‘an introduction to the performing arts’ as a core subject in secondary/high
schools in the country. In that way it will encourage students to be
enlightened performing artistes or appreciative audience members in the future.
“We hope to see the Nigerian
‘product’ exported to a world that accepts and welcomes it, producing levels of
cooperation never seen before.”
Although some have proposed that theatres be built in every local
government area in the country, the award-winning theatre producer/director agrees,
but adds a caveat. As he put it, “I believe there should be many performance
spaces around the country. Germany and the United Kingdom, for example, have
thousands of theatres ranging in size between them. These spaces do not all
have to be in the hands of the government, but they must exist and must be
available”.
Last year, Oguntokun put on stage the musical theatre adaptation of
Cyprian Ekwensi’s Jagua Nana to
critical acclaim at MUSON Music Festival 2014. But he will be missing out this
year, as Nwokedi takes over with Jesus
Christ Superstar. However, Oguntokun said Jagua Nana would be back on stage next quarter. He added, “We
intend to put up Jagua Nana in the
first quarter of next year. It has a large cast as well as musicians and most
be approached ‘carefully’”.
Resilience would seem to be second nature to everything Nigerian, with
theatre being no exception. Oguntokun argued that in spite of impediments, theatre
has continued to make strides and has remained dogged.
“The peculiarities and challenges in the practice of
the profession in Nigeria have produced a rare breed of practitioners,” he said.
“Unlike in Europe, North America and most parts of the world, the production
model in operation in Nigeria defies any hard and fast definition and will not
be found in any manual.
“The obstacles facing the presenter/producer from
Nigeria are many and they range from unfriendly government agencies to
non-supportive state policies.
The ability to self-fund in the face of
lack, run a theatre organisation or Performing Arts Festival on next to
nothing, and to present work continuously in an environment lacking enabling
structures necessary for the proliferation of the arts, is what sets the
Nigerian ‘experiment’ apart from the rest of the world”.
Retrieving the glory days of the National Theatre,
Lagos, is every theatre practitioners’ expectation. But can this be achieved
with the kind of non-artistic leadership in place? Oguntokun thinks not, advising,
“The government must speak to theatre practitioners and not just businessmen.
The grand ideas of building luxury hotels and all around the theatre might
serve some purposes, but there has to be an understanding that the world and
audiences are changing. The millenials generation audiences under 30 years of
age now have as much disposable income as any other group. If the National
Theatre will climb to the position it once held, the government stranglehold on
its management must be relaxed and the programming must be an attractive and
sustainable one.
But how did he come into theatre practice at the
abandonment of law? Does he see the stage as some sort of extension of the law court?
Oguntokun’s response is startlingly telling, “The stage is what it is; a place
of beauty; a place where magic happens. It cannot be replicated in any other
arena. It's where I'm the happiest, where I feel complete the most”.
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