The Crown Troupe of Africa, in collaboration with the National Troupe of Nigeria, recently toured some universities in South West, including Obafemi Awolowo University and University of Ibadan. They relive their experiences with Dorcas Egede
When members of the Crown Troupe of Africa were informed that they would be doing a tour of West Africa to stage the play, Moremi, together with the National Troupe of Nigeria, many of the members didn’t know what to expect. They nonetheless prepared towards it, rehearsing for two weeks at a stretch. And then came the trip.
Playing different roles
For Edo State born Esosa Eguamwense, the Moremi experience is one she would remember for a long time. Having just joined the group in June 2016, it was her first time to go with them on a trip. This graduate of Theatre Arts from the University of Benin says, “It’s an honour for me to have played the role, Moremi. I wondered why Segun Adefila picked me to play Moremi because I’m not Yoruba and can’t even speak the language. I took the challenge, because as an actor when a challenge is brought to you, you should just take it on headlong. I got the script, and even though there was no Yoruba language in the script, I had to learn a couple of Yoruba songs. And thankfully for me, I’m the kind of person that easily adapts into cultures, having grown up in a face-me-I-face-you environment in Lagos, where you have different cultures and people living in one compound.”
She also believes that “the thing about theatre is that getting roles isn’t about being old or new. Having worked with the director for a couple of months, he must have seen a quality in me, which could be physical that resonates with the character, Moremi. I heard that this play had been staged once or twice before now.”
Did Eguamwense have any feeling of apprehension or anxiety when she was told she would be playing the role?
“When I first heard that we are staging Moremi, even before I saw the script, the first thing I did was go online to read about the play. I recall however that when I was in school, we used to hear legendary stories from our lecturers, but I still read about her to refresh my memory.”
How challenging was getting into the role?
Eguamwense seems to already know the tricks of becoming the character you’re playing. “The first thing I usually do when I’m given a character to play is that I look for one thing that I have in common with the character, and there are different angles to a character from which you can pick because you can relate with it. When I was given Moremi to play, it wasn’t challenging. What I found challenging was getting into the culture, taking on the Yoruba intonation and learning those songs.”
Gloria Oghenejakpo, who played the role of Subomi joined crown troupe of Africa in January 2016, after having left her job of three years with a content production company. “I was getting choked in the office, I didn’t want to do office job anymore. I wanted to practice theatre, so in December 2015, I turned in my resignation.” She said.
Asked about the role she played, Oghenejakpo said, “ Subomi was a corrupt Iya-olode . She and the king came up with a method of taxation, where they taxed the people and generated income for themselves. For me Subomi represents the present day corrupt politician who is in power, not to empower the people but to enrich herself. As long as there’s money in the coffers to please her, she doesn’t mind how the people get the money. And whenever she feels that the money being generated from the people isn’t enough, she increases the tax.”
How easy was playing Subomi ? Oghenejakpo confessed that getting into the role wasn’t as easy as she imagined. “Getting into the role wasn’t so easy. But life’s experiences are the things we work with. Being a Nigerian, your desires, aspirations, the things you want most in life are basically being denied you. You have a lot of case studies and available research materials for you to use. The difficult part however, is not having been a politician yourself. You now have to stretch your imagination to make the role you’re playing plausible to someone, such that the person can believe that you’re actually the person you’re acting. So, it was quite challenging, but the good thing about challenges is that it improves you, and you go to new levels you never knew you could attain.”
James Ayodele Ladeji, who has been with the Crown Troupe of Africa for eight years, played the role of Ooni
and Obatala. Speaking of the character of Ooni , he said, “ Ooni is like a contemporary political office holder, who is carried away by corruption and is very lackadaisical about what goes on in the lives of his people. He is more concerned about money coming in, profiteering, as it were, than the welfare of his subjects.”
Was playing Ooni challenging?
Ladeji admits that adapting to the role wasn’t all together easy, even though he believes it’s a privilege to have played the role. He said, “When you’re told to play a character that is the direct opposite of who you are, it’s quite challenging. I’m the quiet and gentle type, so playing the role of a corrupt person was quite challenging. During the rehearsal, the director had to cut me off a lot of time, and you know in a play, you have to respect the director’s approach and do what he wants.”
Like Ladeji, Uche Enechukwu has also been a member of crown troupe of Africa for eight years. While staging
Moremi, he played the role of
Oluorogbo . Oluorogbo , he said, “Represents the voice of the youth; a vibrant and agile youth leader, the son of Oranmiyan and Moremi’s only child.
Asked how long it took him to get into the character of Oluorogbo, Enechukwu’s response was, “Before I’m given a new role, I first check up on the role. I try not to play me in a role. I try to check characters in my environment; pick one or two traits from such characters and add it to the role I’m playing. You’re never done with getting into a role until you’re done with a particular play. You can tend to see a particular trait today, and by the next time you have to play the same role, another trait shows up. So, for me, getting into any role isn’t always difficult.
The trip and its thrill
Going on tour is something every theatre artist is completely at home with. Eguamwensewa, who says she also does travel blogs as pass time, said, “I love road trips. I’m scared of heights, so I always prefer road trips. Moreover, I’m a travel blogger, so I love trips a lot. When I was told I would be travelling with the troupe, I was very excited. It was my first time of travelling with the group. And it was pretty exciting for me, especially because I was travelling with people. I also love taking photos, not of myself, but of people and places. If I wasn’t in theatre, I’d have been a war photo journalist.”
Continuing, she added, “I love the thrill of being in a new place. Now, in the places we visited, accommodation wasn’t so comfortable, but I didn’t care about it. Maybe it’s about the way I was raised. I adapt very easily. It was easy for me to adapt. I didn’t really see a big deal sleeping on the floor, as long as we were going to perform. For me, the thrill of being a part of a group that I’ve always felt welcome in was huge.”
Oghenejakpo too enjoys traveling; the only snag about trips for her however, is putting her stuff together for the journey. “A trip is always fun, but one thing I hate about trips is packing. So, for me, the first challenge was to pack. We went on the road trip. It was fun being with the people you work with, we chatted, quarreled, all that made it fun. But getting to the venues where you had to perform, say by the following day, things become a bit more difficult, because this is a new space which you need to familiarize yourself with, and you really do not have enough time to do that. By the time we got to the school, students were going for classes, and it is only when they are through that your venue for performance would be free. Even though you’d have rehearsed somewhere else, it isn’t the same as rehearsing in the space you want to use for the actual performance. That was a major challenge for us. But we were able to surmount this challenge because we’ve worked together as a family, and understand what we are supposed to do. So, even though there was no time for proper rehearsals in the performance venue, all we did was pressured rehearsals, the play still turned out well. Almost same thing happened in the other places we went.”
Enechukwu, who was thrilled to no end by the audience’s reaction to their performance, said, “We started from OAU. The experience there was mouth-stirring. The audience was wowed by the performance. It looked like they had not seen such spontaneous theatre before. It was also fun working with fellow actors before the show, the whole activities back stage, our disagreements and agreements, it was all fun. For me, it’s not very easy working with other people; sometimes you want to have it your own way, but then you actually find out that you can’t have it your own way. You just have to do a team work.”
Ladeji, who has been on several trips with the troupe, said compared to other trips he’s embarked on with the troupe, the Moremi trip was, “Crazy and exciting at once. The journey was interesting. We had the opportunity of visiting places we had been looking forward to visiting.” Asked how fulfilling his eight years in Crown Troupe has been, he said, “Permit me to quote Segun Adefila who says, ‘a true artist is one that sits with a king today and shares a table with paupers tomorrow.’ So, sometimes it’s rosy and at other times, it’s not so rosy. But I think that’s what shows if you’re really passionate about what you do. Being in the troupe has afforded me the opportunity of meeting many people, and being on different stages.”
http://www.legendvibes.com.ng/2017/02/our-experience-on-moremi-tour.html