The New Inhabitants On Stage: A Review of Cheta Igbokwe’s Stage Play- Awele
Wole Soyinka in a 2005 Nobel Prize interview, remarks on how he’s never quite satisfied until he sees his play on stage, watching as it takes a life of its own. I have read plays myself, and I must say, there’s something quite mystifying watching such said plays as the cast and crew struggle to put it all on stage, to give life to the actions, language taking a distinctive role on connecting the audience with the cast members. Rarely do plays move me. Rarely do they mystify. When they do, I go all in.
Chetachi Igbokwe’s new play Awele premiered on Wednesday the 21st of June, 2023, produced by Innocent “Mc Onachi” Chisom, and under the directorship of Ugochukwu Ugwu. I had had the chance of watching Igbokwe’s first play Homecoming in 2021, so I knew I was in the safe hands of anartful story teller and impressive director. At the onset, I couldn’t help but marvel at the overt light clouds painted on the walls of the stage, to depict heaven no doubt. Awele’s domed throne sits in front of these cloudy walls, a lectern propped on her left hand, used by her emissary played by Dansey U, Mbah. Awele’s creations stand by her right hand, ready to face judgement.
The runtime of the play is roughly an hour, twenty-five minutes, and before the end, I had questions, mostly to Grace Okonkwo whose depiction of Awele left me reeling, with the way she embodied the role; face gleamed with gold, to suit the swaggering golden dress she had on. Awele was glowing. Inside and out. As befitting to a goddess. From her dress to the tone of her voice, even her facial expressions: Awele would often squint towards the characters in admonition, as if seeing them for who they really are. And the first time I heard her laugh, that short cackle, in imitation of the characters Mgbada and Ehi, played by Innocent “Mc Onachi” Chisom and Simon Ugwu respectfully, I could barely contain myself. I like it when a play comes together quite well. I almost hold back the urge to ask the crew details about it when the curtain’s drawn, though, somehow, I guess, that might ruin the mystic feel of the whole play.
Gelsey Kirkland, an American who lives her life on stage, once remarked that when you’re on stage, it feels like you’re having an affair with three thousand people. I quite agree with her. A play goes nowhere if the feelings of the audience are not toyed with. Are they rattled? Do I hear clapping, or is someone behind me about to tear up? We assimilate the lives of the characters whether we like it or not. We can’t help it.Awele is the type of play where you just can’t help but engage with its characters.
American playwright David Mamet in his interview with Paris Review, dated 1997, states that the main qualities in drama, in the way he was taught, is to ask: what does the protagonist want? This question occupied my mind as I sat through the play.
But then to start, one has to ask the question: What is or who is Awele? Because to understand this is to have a little context.
Chijioke Ngobili, in writing for TriumphTimes, comes to help here. Ngobili notes that among the Igbo on the west of the Niger, that there is a recitation used to wish and pray for a traveller.
“Ị jebe, ije awele.” Which roughly translates to one going on a smooth journey.
He goes ahead to state that the term “Awele” is actually a construction from “Awa Ele,” which he describes as
“ancestors enjoying, observing, imitating and performing the skill/ways/manner of a deer in a water body in their own daily lives outside the water and in their cosmos.”
Remarkably, the deer, an “Ele,” as he explains, refers to a water deer who has the ability to navigate for miles in a water body even though it does not live there. But this is me getting lost in Igbo cosmology. What is clear is that Awele is revered, that as the term Ijeawele ascribes to a smooth journey, Awele is, in fact, a goddess, the goddess of rebirth and fortune as Arts Lounge Magazine clearly explains in their synopsis of the play. The goddess who guides us on our journey into the world. Our original mother, as she claims so herself.
Awele represents rebirth, a just god with the powers to usher dead souls back to life. In preferably better circumstances than they were before their death. Awele is a mother. She constantly tells the characters this. She offers them advice on how to live a just life as they return to earth. Doe-eyed and loving as she watches them go.
Now, we meet these two characters, Mgbada and Ehi, whose names are as funny as it gets. Their names represent how the parents had seen them at birth. Deer and cow respectively. Now these two characters do not wish to return to this earth as they came, professing to Awele that they would rather choose their own destinies. While other characters readily accepted their faith and set off to be reborn in quiet, solemn countenance, Mgbada and Ehi wailed when asked to join the circus.
While watching a play, audience members often seek out what someone once referred to as “my person.” This is the character an audience member feels most drawn to. The character’s flaws instantly become yours. Their dreams, yours too. The audience member is rattled when a decision making goes wrong on the part of their said characters. You almost want to scream “don’t,” to this person. To discourage themfrom making mistakes you’ve seen would have dire consequences. Chetachi Igbokwe’s Awele flushed me out and left me to scream internally as my two favourite characters were wheeled into the stage as goats, turned this way by the very goddess that calls herself their mother. Sincerely, at this point, I could kill Awele. While others found reason in this her act, I did not. And this is when you know a work of art has taken place. Multiple interpretations of what went wrong arises. To some, Awele is justified in this her act, to others, it just goes to show how guarded these gods are since Awele, as a god and a mother, should have already predetermined the faith of these two. What type of God is she, someone asks, that she knows this thing and is just waiting for them to fail? Some may add that her cackle at the greed of these characters before it all ends shows she’s aware what’s about to happen, yet she stays and waits for them to crumble. Another might add: but what could she have done? Awele never said she’s an all-powerful and knowing god, or did she?
Mgbada and Ehi are brothers who cannot agree on one thing when it’s time to pick their destinies. They use up the whole time given to them, asking for rather sane things if you look at it that way, but then they get greedy. And when greed enters, sense flees from the other side of the room. The play is didactic as well as mystifying. It reminds me of a saying I’ve long forgotten its source or original wordings: put man on a stage and watch him wrestle with God, or is it himself?Something like that.
Awele did advice them. At a point, she tells them the story of a child who constantly eats until his stomach bursts. Yet the two characters are adamant on their wants and wishes.
Even the chorus, a distinctive part of any play, with theirmelodious sounds at each point of the play, helps to carry Awele’s admonition across, reciting “we heard,” to her declarations.
Greed sets Mgbada and Ehi off into asking for a new earth, while planning to oust Awele from it once their plan is achieved. This is when Awele steps in with a curse. This is when the boys are turned into goats, and their plea to go backto earth the way they were are not heard because, as is typical, once a god proclaims, the so god cannot go back on their word again.
Days after this play I’m still reminiscing, trying to find more ways to hate Awele (in hindsight, I might just have a thing against authority). At the end of the play, I discussed the play with friends and acquaintances, dissecting it piece by piece. Have I been moved? Let’s see. Why can’t I stop thinking about something I know is fictitious? The writers part here is done. A work of art has landed on our doorsteps, bearing with it all the commotion necessary for progressive thoughts and reasoning. And here, I want more. The author should please give us more.
Works Cited
Mamet, David. The Art of Theatre, Paris Review, 1997,Https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1280/the-art-of-theatre-no-11-david-mamet.
Ngobili, Chijioke. The Codification of Awele in Ijeawele. TriumphTimes, 2021,Https://www.triumphtimes.com/2021/01/31/the-codification-of-awele-in-ijeawele
Soyinka, Wole. Interview. Conducted by Simon Stanford. 28 April 2005.https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature)1986/Soyinka/interview
