IT was the Germany-born American writer and diplomat, Henry Alfred Kissinger, who later became the 56th Secretary of State of the United States of America, who said, “nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s just too much fraternising with the enemy.”
Holding this view, this diplomat must have, himself, witnessed or experienced the struggle to be relevant latently going on between the sexes in the United States and by extension across the globe, especially in countries where popular culture is fast becoming the norm.
This long-standing battle of the sexes was brought to the stage recently by the Live Theatre on Sunday using Ola Rotimi’s Man Talk, Woman Talk as the specimen for theatrical dissection at the New Unity Centre, GRA Ikeja, Lagos.
The play, which established Ola Rotimi as not just a tragic writer, but also a humourist, generously used language to highlight the various issues both sexes hold against each other.
Set in a courtroom, though devoid of the usual court technicalities and legal jargon, the play uses humour, arguments and counter arguments to present the views of two idealistic university students, Michael, and a snazzy lady, Karina, who accused each sex as being the main cause of the ills of the society.
While Michael accuses Karina of using her stunning succulent female body to entice male folk to do her biddings, Karina counters it with the arguments that man’s sensibility lies upside down, between his legs, and that he uses his machismo to make ladies conform to his desires. And that it’s the urge to satisfy the male folks that make ladies go the extreme to outdo one another, bleach their skin, dress cute, paint their faces and attach foreign hairs on their heads.
As the arguments and counter-arguments continue, the two-man jury, made up of a counselor (Chiwendu Isiguzo) and a judge (Adebola Ogunshina), becomes divided; the judge, a man, supports the male folk while the counselor, a woman, takes side with the female gender. This creates a wry humour that puts each character against the other. But in a twist of imagination the arguments change with the judge being carried away by the beauty and logical presentations of the lady contender, Karina; especially when his son (a friend of the court) was invited to give evidence.
Flooring her opponent with her logical arguments, even when it was obvious, the judge reverses the result on the grounds that women are the cause of the troubles in our society; stressing that women’s vote don’t count and things must be the way men want them.
Oluwanishola Adenugba and Gbemileke ‘Oscar’ Oyinsan were producers and executive producers of the play
Though the play is one of the unpublished works of the late playwright, Ola Rotimi, the duo of Adenugba and Oyinsan interpreted it differently, spicing it up to be relevant with the times by using currently words such as GSM, blackberry, sagging and other slangs, which were not known or in use as of the time the play was written.
Not meant to prove, which gender is superior, but to uncover the complementary roles men and women play in the society, the actors beautifully brought out the messages of the play, part of which is if we must make the right impact in the society both sexes must forgo their egos, listen to one another and act the talk.
ADENUGBA said, “the biggest challenge of stage presentation is making the people to understand that theatre is as popular a culture as music, films and, even, comedy. Some people say they would rather go for a movie than come for a live theatre show; but gradually, we are growing the audience alongside a few that believe in live theatre.
“Another challenge is funding, because most brands would rather support the popular culture genre of entertainment such as music, movies, fashion, comedy and others than live theatre. Some brands will not, even consider any live stage. And when they do, they give about 1/8th of the total production cost and still expect you to do a whole lot of things for them. But we hope, as we continue with production, people will in future sponsor us for a whole year.”
Collaborating with what he said, Oyinsan revealed that the group would have packed up, but for their passion for plays, which has been their driving force because the business side of stage performance has not been rewarding.
He informed, “aside from entertaining people and bringing social issues to the front burner, we also use the platform to create market for those that can see the potentials in it.
“ If you go for a practical theatre in Italy and all the opera centres across the world, you will see that people pay premium for a front roll seat. In fact, what they, even, pay some of the actors — instrumentalist and the rest — to perform will beat your imagination; they are well remunerated to keep the stage going. Theatre and the classical art fall into that category; so, theatre goes beyond just being classified as part of the pop culture because it is an art and a platform for passing essential messages to the people.”
Stressing the importance of their organisations — Davidhouse Multimedia, Amber 11 Media and the Spruce Company — collaborating under Live Theatre on Sunday to awaken theatre culture in the people, he said, “we live in a fast changing world, where it is no longer about the message, but the hardcore play; you come pay money and they give you what you want and you go away. But we are trying to go back to our roots, speak to ourselves through theatre and make the society a better place for all.”
On reason most producers repeat old plays instead of presenting new ones, Oyinsan noted, “this is because theatre in the country has its roots in the generation of playwrights such as Prof. Wole Soyinka, the late Ola Rotimi and a number of others that have written standard plays, but what we are trying to do is to acknowledge the fact that these playwrights exist or existed, and also introduce new plays.
“There are a lot of young people that have the urge to write plays that are relevant to our society because when the Ola Rotimis wrote their plays, they were relevant to their time. However, that does not mean we can’t write or adapt stories from the past, put them in such a way that they will resonate with our generation. And if we don’t do that, obviously, we would be stocked with stories from the past.”
Calling for support to promote live theatre, the executive producer notes, “keeping theatre alive is a mission for everyone; there is so much we can do in theatre. Even most of these Nollywood actors, who do blockbuster movies, if they don’t come back to do Broadway shows, they are not rated. Theatre has to come back home.
“So, we are soliciting for as much help as we can get to not only bring back theatre, but sustain it, taking it to that enviable position that will make it compete with other genres of entertainment.
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