Back on the Boards: Conclusion

As I said before, my production of Song of the Lusitanian Bogey in Sokoto was extremely elaborate.

We had a full stage-set—large hardboard sheets pinned together at the back of the acting area, over which banners were let down on cords, with titles and designs introducing each scene (it’s a play that covers several hundred years of colonial ravages in Angola leading up to the successful liberation struggle).

At the rear-centre of the stage we had a huge statue representing the Bogey, that is, Portuguese colonialism. This was constructed by carpenters in the local market (the third biggest traditional open market in Africa, after Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam). The Bogey statue was a kind of cubist human torso with outstretched arms and a big head with a helmet on.

Across the chest we pinned a ceremonial sash and grotesque military medals. Inside the statue was a loudspeaker, wired up to a mike clutched by the student who voiced the Bogey from a position way off-stage.

During our Sokoto performances there were only minor hitches. But we’d been invited to give a performance at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, four hours drive away, where things went haywire.

Also there was the possibility of performances in Lagos; one of our Deputy VCs, Chimere Ikoku, was on the board of the Nigerian support committee of the ANC in exile and promised he could arrange for us to give performances in Lagos as a morale-booster for the struggle against apartheid (in the end the Zaria experience was so unnerving, we opted out of Lagos, which was much further away).

We set out for Zaria in several cars and a mini-bus, the scenery loaded into a big van, and the Bogey, with its huge arms sticking out, on the back of an open-top truck. I drove last in the convoy, so I could check if there were any mishaps.

Just in front of me was the truck carrying the Bogey and as we passed through each village or town people rushed to the roadside to cheer it or hurl insults at it. I remember at one point where we ground to a halt because of traffic some sweet kid offered it a banana.

We had arranged for all the students,my colleagues, and the scenery trucks, to drive into the Zaria campus and to head for the Mud Theatre. Despite its rather off-putting name, this is a lovely building, a modern amphitheatre (like the one in the Thaba Bosiu Cultural Village) with hi-tech lighting and sound equipment, enclosed in a ring of traditional straw-roofed mud huts, which serve as ticket office, entrance-way, changing rooms and so on.

The Zaria students would meet our team and take them to their accommodation to refresh themselves before re-assembling at the theatre to get down to work (building the set, getting the actors used to the unfamiliar stage-space, and so on). I wasn’t involved until two hours after arrival and made (in retrospect) the mistake of suggesting to my passengers we stop for refreshments at a lake-side place I knew just before Zaria.

We then pulled up at the campus gate and discovered at the security guards’ lodge the empty Bogey truck and a large pile of wooden planks; the guards had decided the Bogey was some kind of dangerous subversive device and had it dismantled. The truck driver was sobbing as if he’d lost a beloved pet.

We packed the planks back into the truck and drove to the theatre, from where we organized the university carpenters to come and re-assemble it. This they did rather hurriedly because it was towards the end of their working day.

The Bogey now had one arm sticking out of its neck, but I decided this made it look even scarier than before so we left it at that. The performance was a big success. So, to quote the title of one of Shakespeare’s comedies, all’s well that ends well.

Chris Dunton is a former Professor of English and Dean of Humanities at the National University of Lesotho.