THEATRE REVIEW:
ANOTHER AFRICA
3 OCT/11

JOHN COULBOURN,
QMI Agency
R: 4/5
Pictured: Lucky Onyekachi Ejim

TORONTO - If you missed it during its 2010 Luminato run, you're being offered a second chance to catch up with Volcano Theatre's acclaimed Africa Trilogy — or at least, two-thirds of it. What started out as a rich theatrical blend of the work of three playwrights and three directors, under the title of The Africa Trilogy, has been reduced to two plays by two playwrights — rechristened Another Africa — and carefully transplanted from the Fleck Dance Theatre to the stage of the Bluma Appel, still under the Volcano imprimatur, a presentation of Canadian Stage.


Initially, the two works that survived the cut — Binyavanga Wainaina's Shine Your Eye and Roland Schimmelpfennig's Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God — were to have been joined by a third. But days before last week's opening, Deborah Asiimwe's prologue, titled The Stranger, was scrapped in favour of a simple welcome performed by the entire cast.

Under the direction of Volcano's Ross Manson, Shine Your Eye remains a highly impressive work, set in the heart of a modern day Nigeria, where the interests of multi-national oil seem at constant cross-purposes with the interests of the Nigerian people. It's the story of a single girl, Gbene Beka, who is determined to make history rather than be trapped by it. As played by Dienye Waboso, she's a firecracker determined to follow her own path, despite the best efforts of either her Nigerian mentor — a player in Internet scams — or a Canadian Internet friend who wants Beka to join her in the Great White North.

As played by Lucky Onyekachi Ejim, that mentor simply wants to capitalize on the political martyrdom of Beka's father, using her as a pawn in various nefarious financial games, Meanwhile, the Canadian friend Doreen — a lesbian financier played by Ordena Stephens-Thompson — may be only slightly more altruistic in her generosity. Using a rich blend of storytelling, music and video, Manson's assured production makes it all but impossible to remain uninvested in Beka's struggle to control her.


From Nigeria, the action then moves to contemporary North American suburbia for Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God, as two clearly upwardly mobile suburbanites, played by Tony Nappo and Kristen Thomson, welcome home a pair of old college chums, played by Maev Beaty and Tom Barnett, only recently returned from seven years of hard medical service in AIDS- and war-ravaged Africa. As the reunited foursome makes nice, it becomes obvious there are cracks in every single one of the relationships the story embraces, all of which is exacerbated by the tragedy of a single African child.


While the playwright plays fast and loose with time, rewinding and fast-forwarding as he pulls his characters out of the action for more intimate monologues, Peggy Pickit offers a less than flattering look at the ongoing interventions of the Western world, questioning just how much long-term good we can accomplish.
 While it remains a powerful commentary on the cost of charity and its ultimate worth, Liesl Tommy's production seems oddly out of balance. Stepping into a part created by Jane Spidell, the normally impressive Thomson turns in a performance that quickly becomes forced and shrill, undermining Nappo's otherwise strong work and toning down the volume on fine work from Beaty and Barnett.


Still, the works that are Another Africa may not change the way you look at African issues, but they will ensure that, when you look at those issues in the future, you'll understand that the solutions aren't simple matters of black and white.