By Ifeoluwa Olutayo.
Bridget Nkem performing at Alliance Francaise, Ikoyi, Lagos.
We live in an era of continuous cultural interest. There’s a fascination with our history, traditions, and people, and, in turn, a resultant representation in Western media.
This is not new.
In the earlier days, the interest was less about fascination and more about subjugation, warping narratives and perceptions about the “dark continent” to validate the colonial project, positing it as a kindness, a need to save the African people from Barbarism.
You could say, even in the now, that a lot of the representations of Africans and Nigerians are reductive, of course, and some downright offensive. There seems to be a laziness attached to representing us on the screen, the use of the few to represent the many, a duplication of particular mannerisms and leanings of one place to represent anyone from the continent, one so culturally diverse, you could spend the entirety of your life travelling the 54 countries that make up Africa, experiencing new ways to live.
It’s in the context of this very prevalent half-assed representation that the one-woman adaptation of the award-winning play 54 Silhouettes, which was staged at the Lagos Fringe Festival, carries much significance.
The play, written by Africa Ukoh, has had a rich history since its creation in 2011 as a radio drama, finishing as the first runner-up at the BBC African Performance Competition. Over the years, it has been enacted as a stage play with a 5-man ensemble, a one-man stage play first performed in 2018 by actor Charles Etubiebi in Lagos and then at the Network of Emerging Artists and Professionals of the International Theater Institute Festival (NEAP Fest) in October of that same year. It’s been a decade of performances, and its relevance has never waned.
The thirty-minute one-woman play adaptation, produced by multi-hyphenate artist Belinda Yanga and performed by rising star Bridget Nkem, brings a new layer of complexity to the politics of representation long debated within the walls of the story; the realities of women working in the entertainment industry.
Victoria Chiemezie, an actress working in Hollywood, lands a dream role in a blockbuster about her native Nigeria. Problems and doubts begin to arise once she gets a hold of the script for this life-changing role, as it continues to bear all the marks of a simplistic and rather harmful representation of Nigeria (war-torn Nigeria is a descriptor I haven’t heard in all my years of existence), and it becomes increasingly clear that the problematic British producer, Howard Flynn and her agent, Sonny Chuks, see this representation as fitting for the big screen.
There is a growing sense of discomfort with how she’s meant to embrace stereotypes as fact, in occurrences, in settings, and even in accents (one of the more common issues, even in the present). This is not made easy when considering her co-star, Kayode Adetoba, who plays a general in this “war-torn” Nigeria, is also okay with this, given the fact that he is a British-Nigerian actor, connected to the people and the culture, at least by birth.
Her discomfort grows as she proceeds with the representation, burdened with a career and survival, making that choice to quit a difficult one, but one thing I would like to remark upon in this particular adaptation is the intersection of dominations. In the very rooms where her doubts creep in, her reticence about the film is pounced upon in racist, classist, and sexist ways, which mirrors the very experiences of actresses working in hostile, white environments, even when surrounded by men of colour.
A critique not only of systems that homogenize Africans to one stereotype but also empower men to oppress women (of color), silencing their voices and obscuring their talents and hard work. Women are subject to verbal abuse, sexual harassment, erasure for work done, weaponised beauty standards, and in many cases, actual physical violence in the workplace, and this adaptation was intent on shining a light on these very problematic situations, which are sometimes, life-long realities for women working in industries with little or no accountability, or working alongside figures protected by the perceptions of immense power and absolute propriety.
The director, the very excitable (and white) Larry Singer, believes in staying the course. She tries to get everyone moving in the same direction, one that ignores the very problems that exist in the world that the script will give life to. She cannot seem to understand why this matters, even as she tries to.
Resultantly, Victoria is left to take on the blatant racism and sexism that Howard spews, as her (supposed) allies view her as an obstruction to their blockbuster successes and bonuses, and they react accordingly, with her agent and Kayode also engaging in sexist and classist rhetoric when posed with the seemingly straightforward conversation of accurate representation.
There is a humanizing angle to a few of their faults; Larry just wants to make a blockbuster, even when she confides in Victoria about her power to end that dream, and her agent, Sonny, has a family to take care of.
It seems to extend beyond critiquing human faults, reaching for a critique of the systems that allow these half-assed representations to exist in the name of Capital.
Bridget was fantastic on stage; her use of space was mesmerizing to watch, as she embodied all the characters in this stage play, transforming one soul into five storied people with wants, needs, biases, and creeds. I was enthralled as she moved across the stage, leaving echoes of characters behind to answer as she embodied another to pose questions. She moved from character to character with ease, maintaining the accuracy of their staging and positions in every interaction. Her stage was brought to life, deftly using the very few set items to provide a three-dimensional performance, mise-en-scene brilliance at work here, minimalist but striking. Kudos to the production team.
It was a sight to behold, watching her work, bringing all of the story to life, embodying narration and performance, breaking the fourth wall to pose important questions to the audience, a case of her never letting go, firmly holding all the attention the room had to give.
In the end, I think a lot about the far-reaching consequences of simplistic representation, how it not only diminishes the wonder and diversity that a region embodies but also rewrites its history, providing future generations with an incomplete (and sometimes totally wrong) view of a people.
We become shadows and silhouettes, an echo of all of what makes us us.
In the course of the play, Victoria echoes this sentiment, “There is a completeness to a people.”
It is a profound line that encapsulates the entirety of the play before me, and it serves as an awakening for those who will see it on its tour.
As Nigerians (and Africans), we must continue to push for this completeness to be represented everywhere we are subjects of a story because as it is becoming increasingly clear, who else will?
