LANKE OMU’TI: the drunkenness of a Nation. Makinde Adeniran.
Bariga brings its own shade of coloration against this backdrop of a cosmopolitan city, where all the seeming identity of everything ‘jolly’ about a nation would first peep at every intending or actual tourists. Yes, the mishmash against an Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Lekki or Alausa Ikeja etc. is what places like Bariga often provides in this cosmopolitan agenda… this shanty (as often referred to) is where the boom, and unapologetic so, the truth about a people of a city or a nation resides! But like the Vulture that constantly picks on the flesh of a dead body, soon, the carcass will show face and the mealtime will be over. So it is with the drunkenness in the head of the Nigerian ruling class!
Lanke Omuti is one of Nigeria’s indigenous Yoruba language classical drama piece written by late Kola Ogunmola, which in turn was translated, from Amos Tutuola’s “The Palmwine Drunkard”. The Bariga Art Forum- BAF decided that her voice will be heard through that drama piece in a week long Bariga Open Air Theatre- BOAT Festival 2019, staged at the downtown Ilaje area inside Bariga. The street was agog! Some of the unrelenting bariga crowds, most of them, residents, were in splinters cheering or jeering in joy just before the drama began. If you read their faces, you’d almost forget that the show was going to be in the open. You’d think we were all waiting to be ushered into a lush performing venue. Though the lush but abandoned Lagos state government newly opened jetty that compulsorily became the backdrop for the performance created an understandable setting for the musical piece, prison. Yes, that’s what it feels like being around here in this time and season in the nation’s life!
So, it was apt for BAF in collaboration with Mainframe Television and Films Production to have thrown this proverb upfront at this period. Aside this reality, BAF and Segun Adefila (artistic director) equally want to “revive a robust theatre consciousness that hopes to fill the gap left by the Alarinjo Theatre tradition which became prominent in the sixteen century through the twentieth century”. A tradition, which has helped through the centuries to articulate and critique the unruly leadership that has become a riveting Abiku causing the masses a frigid stare, A tradition that has helped to educate ‘laureates’ through the years of Mbari and Ulli Beier, the tradition that has educated some of today’s thoroughbred theatre artistes both in leadership and sacrifice, and I dear say, that the Alarinjo Theatre forms one of the elements that triggered the study of theatre arts as a course in the faculty of social sciences across Nigerian universities. So when the Lagos Theatre Festival- LTF, berthed by the British Council in Nigeria claims it brought experts in theatre to teach Nigerian theatre practitioners site specific, I wondered what Alarinjo concept was teaching all these centuries.
Near sundown, Lanke Omuti opened knowing that the thick evening would soon happen on us, just like the Nigerian socio-economic mess that kept depressing the populace as our time ticks out. Yet, we’ve seen/are still seeing several opportunities.
“Were it not for drunkenness/ I would have been more responsible…/ every bit and pieces of opportunities that came my way/ I squandered…/ I would have been more responsible/ if not for this my drunkenness…/”
That was the yoruba song Adefila’s mishmash of western and African percussion band opened the play with. Lanke Omu (Femi Akinde) appeared resplendent both in voicing and carriage; his dexterity at delivering the role was obvious from the very start of the drama piece. Lanke’s friends are on visit, drunk and they are sure to have another good taste of palm wine before they proceed to another joint. This ensemble was practical in cohesion as they help convey Adefila’s love for symbols through. It was obvious that Adefila was bent on making the audience laugh their hearts out despite the depressing symbols he represented on stage. Lanke loves palmwine so much and he enjoys the company of his fair-weather friends to maintain his jolly-life, so he summons Alaba (Kingsley Okorie) his tapster, to get them the usual.
The decision to drink more wine on drunkenness speaks volume of the situation in our national life. We cannot build democracy in such confused state of mind. Education is in shambles, morals are falling, and security is in distrait… yet we are bent on more! Of course Alaba the tapster fell from the palm tree and died.
The unfolding scenes tell a lot about the director’s intention at deliberately throwing some jabs at the political class especially during their fanfare of electioneering campaign. It’s insane the kind of promises we take in from politicians without scrutinizing right from the start. Maybe for our individual gains just like Lanke’s friends. Only in a drunken stupor would anybody make or believe that a living man will go and fetch another from the “Land of the dead”, knowing that we are yet to see mortal being who dies and return to planet earth to live again! Yet the friends of Lanke Omu, just like the masses, believe him when Lanke says he would go to the Land of the dead to bring Alaba the tapster back to earth. So Lanke and his friends believe the drunkenness in their foolishness just the way we suddenly become gullible during electioneering campaigns.
Very didactic! Lanke Omu’ti is designed to inculcate some delicate Yoruba morals even at this contemporary age. The ensemble and Mr. Adefila’s symbolist approach to unraveling the scenery through the journey of Lanke to the Land of the dead is replete with so much creativity, especially with the human props adapted to achieve the sceneries. From forest to forest, wisdom for foolishness, Lanke fought his way for an onward journey. The movement through the scenes illustrates the crypt into which we often fell and our institutions derelict/abuse when the human race deliberately alter the equation with which democracy (collectivism) functions truthfully. Through almost 10 scenes, we see how effort upon effort from Lanke Omu fails, safe only for his self aggrandizement plots. He never adds anything to all the kingdoms (institutions) he came through! The plotting of this well improvised musical drama narrates this ageless classic with the utmost simplistic approach for layman understanding.
Just before the Land of the Dead, Lanke arrives at Ilu Ika (land of the wicked) where the king’s title is Oba Ilu-Ika, King of the Wicked (Wale Ayodeji) and the subjects, Ara Ilu Ika (city of the wicked), and seemly ageless. Using children as masses in such scene is an indication of the director’s intention at saying something quite profound about age, longevity and time. It is so hilarious when from the start of the scene, both the masses and the king pinch each other all through and get excited, even comfortable. The inhabitants of Ilu Ika only get happy when they’re able to show wickedness to Neighbors. It was strange seeing the king in a military camouflage… Is it clearly to indicate the suspension of rule of law or the denial of justice as a way of life chosen by communities who are sworn to underdevelopment or just the wickedness of the leadership class? So many questions than answers that Mr. Adefila left in our tastebuds for the use of this costume for that scene. Only military uses decree as against constitution in a democratic setting! In the end, ase’ni se’ra e! He who proposes evil unto others suddenly struck himself with evil. That was the lot of the King of Ilu-Ika, and Ilu-Ika was thrown into chaos! The leadership class must know assertively, that a man can only be married to his intentions. No matter how much of denials you make, people will only see you in the light onto which you appear.
In the end, Lanke Omu woke up from the sleep his drunkenness has thrown him. It has all been a dream! Though Lanke got to the Land of the dead but as known, he could not return with the tapster as promised! That’s how the leadership class often fails because their intentions and knowledge are blunted. Serving humanity is not a choice, it’s a sacrifice, and the willing carrier must set his/her mind on it rightly. Assuming leadership position with quota system or all of those weak intention from across africa is an indication that we are still in drunken reverie hoping and praying that “tomorrow will be good”.
“Were it not for drunkenness/ I would have been more responsible…/ every bit and pieces of opportunities that came my way/ I squandered…/ I would have been more responsible/ if not for this my drunkenness…/” of course, Lanke Omu and his friends continue their drinking to drunkenness.
It was on this note that Mr. Adefila ended his version of this classic- LANKE OMUTI.
Makinde Adeniran
April 2019