From Kehinde Adewole
On Sunday, November 15, a novel and promising development ensued in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State capital; Arowolo Gardens and the recently founded Ado Repertory Theatre, staged Geoffrey Agbo’s satiric comedy, ‘Gramma Don Do’, on the proscenium stage of the Arowolo Ballroom, located around famed Fajuyi Park area of the state capital.
The play’s performance, as directed by one of the finest young theatre directors in the country, Tayo lsijola, excited the audience who comprises young theatre enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and middle class men and woman. It also served as a metaphor for the re-current failure to deliver good governance by majority of Nigeria’s political class.
Mainly a comic rendition, which ensured that the audience had great doses of laughter throughout the performance, ‘Grammar Don Do’, urges Nigerian leaders to stop their usual and fruitless pre-occupation with rhetoric, deception, and blame game etc, and should rather, deliver dividends of democracy as well as fulfill their electoral promises to the citizenry.
The performance narrates a hilarious story of a couple, illiterate but street-wise Okoro and his arrogant, educated wife, Agnes, including the ‘solicited interruption’ of Okoro’s younger brother, Andy; a well educated but unemployed man who delights in impressing anyone with his deliberate use of high sounding vocabularies in his depositions.
Okoro helps Agnes to study up to the National Certificate of Education (NCE) level with specialty in English Language. He ends up getting married to her in the process. Agnes becomes far more educated than her primary school drop-out husband and later uses her educational status to intimidate him at home.
The couple quarrels incessantly as a result of Agnes’ arrogance and her husband’s refusal to heed her challenge for him to go back to school and level up with her ‘in speaking good English’. She often neglects her duty as a wife and rather engages in intimidating her husband with speaking queen English and correcting his poor grammar at every slight opportunity.
Okoro decides to have his pound of flesh on his arrogant wife, he brings to their matrimonial home his well-read younger brother, who he has equally sponsored like he did for his wife. Andy becomes an oppressive tool in the hands of his elder brother against Agnes. He speaks high sounding vocabularies to intimidate and insult her and drives her crazy to a point Agnes tries to blackmail her husband into ejecting Andy from the house or lose her as a wife.
Unyielding, Okoro chooses to allow his brother to stay instead of Agnes. The now defeated woman results to pouring verbal invectives on the husband and drives him so crazy that he chases her away from the house with a cutlass!
Okoro returns to the house to discover that his own brother’s ‘grammar’ could give more severe headache than his wife who he has just driven away. He eventually drives away Andy with a note of warning in his last line: “Grammar Don do for this house, Grammar Don do for this country o!” Thus, the comic play succeeds in rendering a metaphor of the leadership failure in Nigeria as it draws succinct parallels to the reality of the state of the nation in the country.
Okoro could be likened to the Nigeria citizenry, who like him, vote politicians, hitherto, ordinary Nigerians, into the corridors of power, just like Okoro picks Agnes from a mere groundnut seller and sponsors her education to NCE level and eventually marries her.
The Nigerian politicians, once in power, indulge in rhetoric and unfulfilled promises and neglect their onerous duty of delivering dividends of democracy and fulfilling their electoral promises.
The vicious cycle continues even when the citizenry, like Okoro, searches for and brings in another candidate like Andy, who, they think, could perform better. Just like Okoro wrongfully thinks Andy, who is more lettered than his wife, can help subdue her arrogance.
A new occupier of the seat of power turns out a worse leader than the former one; same way Andy’s ‘grammar’ gives Okoro more severe headache than his wife’s.
Thus, ‘Grammar Don Do’, becomes a political metaphor and satire, issuing express warning to our leaders and largely to the political class, to stop the unwelcomed, lame excuses and ensure performance in office as that is the only reason they have been voted into power. This is besides, the great fun it provided the audience which was in form of rendering an over dose of comic puns that left many of the audience rolling in thier chairs with laughter throughout the performance.
The performance was equally enhanced with interludes of thrilling musical performances by the Bethel Jazz band which operated behind the scene. This was just as it enjoyed excellent lighting from Aseleke Ayodele, a graduate of the Department of Theatre and Media Arts, Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE).
It also enjoyed excellent acting from the actors who included Ijioma Oziogu as Agnes, Barma Godwin as Andy, both gradates of Theatre Arts from the University of Port Harcourt, while Mr Isaaac Gondo, a lecturer of Theatre Arts, FUOYE, played Okoro. The production was stage-managed by Dorcas Olusomika.
Above all, Gramma Don Do’s performance enjoyed an awesome directorial handling by Tayo Isijola.
It was produced as the flag off of Ado Sunday Theatre by Ado Repertory Theatre; the brainchild of veteran actor, Dele Morakinyo and Tayo lsijola, which has enjoyed the great collaboration with Arowolo Gardens..
While introducing the performance as an appetizer to soon to be running theatre performances for Ekiti audience, Morakinyo said: “We just felt that Ekiti which has produced great theatre Giants such as Kola Ogunmola, JimohAliu, cannot afford to allow live theatre to die, this is the inspiration behind this idea. It is being proposed as sophisticate live performance which is to start from Dec 6, 2020.
Also, speaking about the performance and what Ado Sunday Theatre aims to achieve, Isijola said: “We are targeting a cultured audience, to cater for the entertainment needs of theatre lovers, Government officials, successful entrepreneurs, fun seekers etc, who we leant have be traveling to Akure to watch theatre shows. You can reach us on www.adosubdaytheatre.com. The performance coming from December is called Pepper soup by Elechi Amadi.
The premier show will have the presence of an industry celebrity while the regular shoes will cost 1000, the premier show will be 2000.
Among other diginitries who watched the performance on Sunday were immediate past Head of Department (HOD) of Theatre and Media Arts, (FUOYE) and General Secretary, Society of Nigeria Theatre Artists (SONTA), Associate Professor Desen Jonathan Mbachaga and current HOD, Dr. Lilian Bakare who is also the amiable wife of Prof. Rasaki Ojo Bakare, Nigeria’s first Professor of Dance and Performance Aesthetics and current Honourable Commissioner for the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Tourism, Ekiti State.
