The bad news is: a second lockdown has interrupted this opening production in the Crucible’s new season, themed around the word “together”. By the time this review is published, the theatre will again be dark. But this is an intermission, not a final curtain. The good news is that this production will go online, and has proved that the Crucible is Covid-secure, so that when the panto opens (oh yes, it will), staggered entry times, temperature readings twinned with ticket checks and spaced-out seating will mean that audiences can feel as safe here as anywhere.
This world premiere, conceived and directed by Mojisola Elufowoju and written by Oladipo Agboluaje, is a sweeping family saga, delivered with a rough-theatre bravado. The underlying theme of the action is expressed early on, in a conflict between two women. Agbeke’s mother, who is willingly subservient to her husband, says to her own mother, who is subservient to no one: “If I were like you, I’d never have found a man to marry me. And that right there is a problem.”
It’s the problem faced by Agbeke (Ayo-Dele Edwards), her daughter Omotola (Estella Daniels) and her granddaughter Aramide (Kiké Brimah). As we follow their lives from 1960s Nigeria to present-day Leeds, we see how their choices are shaped: sometimes by social or religious structures – underpinned by sexism, sectarianism and/or racism – sometimes by self-sabotage. Agbeke, for instance, falling in love, quits her university studies for a marriage that turns into a trap.
The three excellent actors kaleidoscope through more than 35 characters, which they convey naturalistically, stylistically and via song and dance, Elufowoju’s direction seamlessly melding with Karin Fisher-Potisk’s movement work. As performance, the production is impressive and often exciting. As a drama, though, it feels patchy, more like a demonstration of ideas than their realisation, with scenes switching between poetic beauty, insightfulness and banality.
Amanda Stoodley’s plain chipboard backdrop and floor, with its single, stylised tree, as subtly lit by Andy Purves, gives the action the scope it demands, allowing effortless shifts between the warm, wide horizons of Nigeria and the cold, dull skies of England. Rob Hart’s sound designs harmonise the different environments, link events thematically and build emotional resonances (births and deaths of children accompanied by the sound of softly running water).
Agboluaje’s breathtakingly ambitious play is well worth seeing, even if its aims are not yet fully achieved.
