I recently reviewed Ben Okri’s new work, Tales of Freedom, a collection of his short stories. I didn’t like it much. Okri seems to have lost the desire to tell stories in the way he did earlier in his career. There isn’t much in the way of plots and stories and Okri seems content to dispense nuggets of wisdom.
This is the latter Okri, sparse, more meditative, almost like an oracle. He is quite different to the earlier writer who gave to us The Famished Road, the Booker Prize-winning novel about Azaro, a spirit child.
In Yoruba mythology, the spirit child is called an abiku and an ogbanje in Igbo mythology. Both describe a child who regularly visits the earth only to return quickly to the other world.
This book has been adapted for the stage by Helen Iskander. She admitted in her director’s notes that although she was fascinated by the possibility of telling the story on stage, she also knew ‘the book is unstageable [as] Okri’s imagination is infinite”.
She said the production’s aim was to “create a platform for the audience’s imagination, influenced by Okri’s words, in a way that does not speak singularly of any one human society”. It is a mission that has been ebulliently executed.
Performed by Mncedisi Shabangu, Tinah Mnumzana, Themba Ntuli, Labella Dani, James Cunningham, Alfred Kunutsor, Zoey Lapinsky and Lindiwe Matshikiza, this production is a rich, multicoloured tapestry, possessing an otherworldly feel due to Lisa Younger’s sparsely furnished set.
The play’s triumph is in its recreation of the spirit realm. Using animist sounds, puppets, surreal lighting and, most importantly, a forceful imagination, the actors create a voodoo ambience that reciprocates Okri’s vivid imagination.
All of this wouldn’t have worked if Themba Ntuli, playing Azaro, the child protagonist, was an average actor. Ntuli is a genius. He played his role so naturally, with a charming, wide-eyed innocence.
Ntuli boasts the serenity and the quiet acceptance that I imagine the ogbanje would have. Azaro suffers on this earth, his father neglects his parental responsibilities with a promise that he regularly dusts up now and again. He always tells his long suffering wife that he will get a job ‘tomorrow”.
Azaro boasts an intense stare that seems to gaze into the spirit world. He knows they will accept him, that he is a citizen of that world, always welcome to join them, but he refuses to go.
The Famished Road is a fantastic production.