This weekend marks the premiere of Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka’s The Beatification of Area Boy: A Lagosian Kaleidoscope at Duke.
Presented by the Department of Theater Studies, Area Boy situates Soyinka’s personal activism in African human rights within a broader historical context, said Director Jody McAuliffe.
“This play is a unique synthesis of Soyinka’s own voice and those important writers such as [William] Shakespeare and [Bertolt] Brecht,” McAuliffe, who is also professor of the practice of Theater Studies and Slavic and Eurasian Studies, said. “It’s an experience in scale but [also] in contemporary context.”
Soyinka’s drama is based on the violent displacement of the urban poor in Nigeria after the oil boom in the ’90s. The region’s corrupt government unexpectedly burned numerous villages to the ground to make way for luxury housing.
Against this backdrop, Area Boy follows the efforts of the protagonist Sanda, a street gangster of the Lagos area. Following the age-old Robin Hood story, Sanda upsets the fraudulent government through low-level criminality to provide for his fellow citizens.
Despite the somber theme, Miriam Sauls, director of theater and communication for Theater Studies, said the play is light-hearted.
“[Area Boy] contains very serious subject matter, but [Soyinka] uses comedy to address these issues,” Sauls said. “By the end, Sanda begins to transform and address the corrupt issues in a more positive way.”
Soyinka collaborated with the directors and cast members in early September and is currently in-residence at Duke for the opening week. During his residency, Soyinka will lead seminars, workshops and discussions for students and faculty.
Throughout the process, Soyinka said he typically remains detached from interpreting and directing his works.
“I just respond when the director of a play of mine approaches me about something or the other, but I don’t really cut in or intervene much,” Soyinka said. “I find it very stimulating when students tackle works of this kind.”
McAuliffe said although she did not have much face-to-face contact with Soyinka, his input on the play was helpful.
“It was great to have him here for the first several days of rehearsal to ask questions and discuss things with him and allow the actors to do the same,” she said.
Though set in Nigeria, Area Boy focuses on the theme of economic disparity, which can be found all over the world.
To highlight this intent, the production utilizes multimedia aspects, said Bill Noland, associate professor of the practice of Visual Arts and multimedia director for Area Boy.
“We [at Duke] are... sealed off from the world a little bit,” Noland said. “This is a way to bring some very harsh outside realities to campus but in a very humanistic way.”
Noland designed a film that depicts the poverty of Detroit, which will be projected simultaneously with the live performance.
Noland, along with McAuliffe and Danya Taymor, Trinity ’10, contemplated several cities before settling on the Michigan metropolis.
“As we considered going to Detroit, it actually made a lot of sense,” Noland said. “It’s in effect a battered city—almost a third world city inside of America—but it’s also an incredibly vibrant place that’s awakening culturally at this very moment.”
The producers were careful, however, not to let the multimedia element overshadow Soyinka’s theatrical work.
“The play depicts this very lively cultural life at street level,” Noland said. “The video in a production like this has to be somewhat muted and slowed down so as to not distract from what’s happening on stage, but [instead] somehow enriches and augments it.”
The production is part of the second annual Duke Arts Festival, which showcases the arts on campus Oct. 22 through Nov. 7. The festival features student artwork, performances and panels by alumni in arts-related fields.
“The idea is to build a Duke arts community [that is] campus-wide,” Vice Provost for the Arts Scott Lindroth said. “The Arts Festival is just a way of trying to make that community stronger and more visible.”
The Beatification of Area Boy: A Lagosian Kaleidoscope will run Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Oct. 21 through Oct. 31 at Reynolds Theater. Tickets are $10 for the public and $5 for students and can be purchased at the Duke University Box Office and tickets.duke.edu. There will also be a pre-show discussion with Soyinka tomorrow in the Rare Book Room at 6:30 p.m.
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