Performance Review; The Heritage Theater Series: Wogbe Jeke

Two weeks ago Beau and I got decked out in our traditional kente finery to visit Ghana's National Theater to see the Heritage Theatre Series' Wogbe Jeke: The Birth of a Nation. It is the first installment in a series of yearly plays leading up to the celebration of 60th anniversary of Ghana's independence in 2017.

We opted to attend the 8pm evening show so we could have the full 'night out on the town' experience. As we drove into the theater, we could tell by the ease with which we found parking that the attendance for the night would probably be low. After presenting our tickets at the gate we met a live jazz band performing in the lobby! It was quite a fancy touch that tickled and entertained us as we milled about until it was time for the show to start. As we looked around as we seated ourselves we received confirmation that there were quite a few empty seats in the theater. 

Writing this review, and indeed watching the play, is made somewhat difficult because programs were not provided to introduce the cast members or guide the audience through the different acts. The play ended up being 2 hours long with no intermission. It was a combination of traditional Ghanaian dances, modern interpretative dance, song, and occasional dramatic performances. These are all wonderful storytelling mediums,especially when combined in one show, but for someone unversed in Ghanaian ethnic history going back over a thousand years (I can imagine most people fall into that group), the play was a bit difficult to follow without the guidance of a program. 

There were narrators of course, but there were so many in number (about 5 over the course of the play!) that it only added to the confusion. Several narrators would be onstage at once but they did not seem to have different personalities or differing perspectives. It would have been interesting if each narrator were appointed to be the voice of an ethnic group, bringing further understanding of how each group reacted to each historical event, but this was not the case. Each ethnic history was presented separately from that of the others. Therefore, it was puzzling as to why just one narrator wasn't selected. Furthermore, some narrators were quite difficult to understand because of their enunciation; I missed large chunks of dialogue because their words were muffled. This made it more confusing as to the larger purpose of their presence.

The play began at 8pm on the dot with an explosive performance by a female singer/dancer whose face I recognized from unrelated award shows in Accra but alas, with no playbill, I cannot give further details. She was absolutely riveting while onstage and possessed the vocal clarity and the charisma of a griot. Beau was similarly moved and remarked that her performance gave him chills. I was very much hoping that she would remain onstage in a narrator (via song) role for the entirety of the play (as was done in the Broadway production of Fela!) but it was not to be. It was sadly her only performance of the night. She performed with Ghanaian traditional dancers who did not seem to approach the performance with the same seriousness, passion,  and intent as her and it unfortunately detracted from her stellar performance. 

One noticed that from this very first performance the costumes used in the play were inconsistent. When the costume designer put together an outfit that was entirely Ghanaian traditional wear, it was very elaborate and impressive to witness. However, the play made the choice to combine both modern and traditional clothes. So while the first performer was attired in beautiful traditional garb, her backup dancers were wearing VERY bright neon green polo shirts. Their ensemble, and their lackluster performance, pulled your attention away from her marvelous work.

Additionally, there was a choir present on the stage throughout the performance and they were dressed in black slacks and contemporary shirts made out of brightly colored African patterned material. The attire of the choir, and even the narrators, visually reminded you of our present culture and time period, constantly underscoring the "this is make believe" sentiment at the back of one's head. Given that the play spanned a time period from ancient Egypt to Yaa Asantewaa and the arrival of colonialism in the early 1900s, it was very jarring to always have the choir onstage while they were dressed in modern 21st century clothes. It made it difficult to engage in the suspension of disbelief that is necessary for one to really engage with a play.

I'm not really qualified to judge the historical accuracy of period costumes, but the ones that seemed fully committed to Ghanaian traditional attire of the past were quite stunning. Websites such as Gold Coast Ghana compile images of Ghana during different periods of our history and I have seen photos going back as far as the early 1800s so it is at least reasonable to assume the costume designer had some information available for reference. 

After the first singer's performance, the play took you through the birth of Ghana. It began with a cold open of a high intensity interpretative dance sequence that (without a playbill or narrator) I assumed to be representative of the birth of man and civilization (and perhaps a commentary on the notion that all life emerged from Africa). After this scene we then moved on to Egypt and the rule of Nefertiti and then the rule of Mansa Musa and the establishment of the Ghana Empire.

The narrators then came onstage and spoke on the genealogical background of the leaders of the various Ghanaian ethnic groups and how they migrated to their present location in the modern day 10 regions of Ghana. There was a great effort made to detail the several generations the preceded those leaders and name the various places they settled. However, given volume of unfamiliar names and the multitude of areas discussed (encompassing the whole of Ghana), it was difficult to fully appreciate and digest this information. It would have been very helpful if they had visually represented this to the audience in some way. There was already a projector onstage which was used to depict background scenery. It  could have easily been used to project a Ghanaian map and demonstrate migration patterns.  Having a visual representation of the migration, lineage, and settlement patterns would have done much to solidify the content being presented.  

This brings me to the point that the play did not seem to have decided its main purpose and flip-flopped between agendas. Was it a historical primer providing snapshots of the pivotal moments in history for those previously unversed in Ghanaian ethnic history? Was it a refresher for the Ghanaian knowledgeable of larger history but who wants a celebratory walk through the main highlights? If you read my previous post on this series you will know that I was holding out for a third option that would bring something new to the table, a little nuance to the stories we all cherish. Who doesn't swell with pride and awe at the image of traditional leader Okomofo Anokye conjuring the Ashanti Golden Stool from the sky, or chuckle at the Ewe walking backwards out of their kingdom to escape their evil chief Togbe Agorkoli. However,  it would have been nice for the show to develop those leaders as multidimensional characters and not just as a function of the role they played in the establishment of their kingdoms. For instance, why did Okomofo Anokye decide that a stool was the best means of uniting the Ashanti clans? What was his internal dialogue like? Yes, it would have required a little creative license in many places but that is necessary when creating speeches to reenact any historical moment.

However, for some of the later periods we do have records of actual speeches but they were not used in the play. In particular, I was disappointed concerning the omission of legendary Queenmother and warrior, Yaa Asantewaa's, fearless and stirring (and very feminist!) chastisement of the Ashanti leadership when they failed to seek retribution after the British sought to exile the Ashanti chief and demanded to be given the Golden Stool to sit upon:

"Now I have seen that some of you fear to go forward to fight for our king. If it were in the brave days, the days of Osei Tutu, Okomfo Anokye, and Opoku Ware, chiefs would not sit down to see their king taken away without firing a shot. No white man [Obroni] could have dared to speak to a chief of the Ashanti in the way the Governor spoke to you chiefs this morning. Is it true that the bravery of the Ashanti is no more? I cannot believe it. It cannot be! I must say this, if you, the men of Ashanti, will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my fellow women! We will fight the white men. We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields."

I was hoping this production would highlight the critical role that women played in our history and how different ethnic group histories were interrelated and how they responded to one another. Perhaps the larger conclusion, for me, was that the medium of theater and a 2 hour showtime may not be the best medium to portray what I wanted out of the play. In the end, the sheer volume of ethnic groups to represent over such a long period of history made the production more of a recitation of what happened rather than a visual representation of it. Narrators came on to explain a lot of events, genealogies, and actions that were not depicted onstage; this was far less captivating than if we had seen it visually represented somehow. 

The overuse of the narrator to explain things that were not depicted led to the feeling, at points, that it was an extended history lecture.  However, this is a product of the amount of information that the directors wanted to convey. This makes me wonder if the story would be better suited for a longer televised series similar to the famed American miseries Roots: The Saga of the American Family.  It premiered on American television sets in 1977 and documented the journey of the Mandinke warrior Kunte Kinte from his capture in The Gambia to his enslavement in Virginia. The lengthy nature of the series provides space that allows the audience to get to know the journey and personal stories of American slaves and their descendants from the early 1750s until the 20th century. It really brought the history to life and you could see the interplay of different concepts such as the way the slavery affected the African American structure of the family, the way it impacted women versus men, the detrimental mental impact it had to even slaveowners, etc.I believe such a longer format could really help draw out the complexity in our stories.

The traditional dances, songs, and dramatic performances were quite good in my opinion. Apart from the very first performance of the night, the one that seems most clearly embedded in my memory is that of Okomfo Anoye dancing and bringing down the Golden Stool. The actor who portrayed him in the scene was such a pleasure to watch as a he danced and twirled around the stage.

I must say that even though it was different from what I hoped for I still enjoyed Wogbe Jeke and admire the cast and crew for pulling off such an ambitious performance. I will definitely be in attendance at next year's second installment of the series. This second play will pick up at the fall of Yaa Asantewaa and continue with colonialism up until Ghana's independence.

Did you attend this performance? If so, tell me what your impressions were in the comments!