Ogboingba Tries To Change Her Fate, Jabulani Arts Festival. Photo by Beshel Francis.

Brett Dahl, Michael Peng, Michelle Todd, Sydney Williams in Tiny Beautiful Things, Shadow Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

On the stages of this theatre town this weekend is a high-contrast array of entertainment possibilities, from a comic adaptation of a classic novel to the enactment of an advice column to a full-fledged festival. Have a peek at the possibilities.

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•Last night I went to a theatre that was full — no, crammed to the rafters — with a festival. And festive people. And a tangible vibe of festivity.   

It was opening night of the Ribbon Rouge Foundation’s inaugural Jabulani Arts Festival, a celebration of African, Caribbean, and Black Albertan culture. And Theatre Network’s Roxy Theatre was rockin. Downstairs in the Lorne Cardinal Theatre, the full-house poetry performance performance was running a bit overtime. Upstairs, outside the Nancy Power Theatre, people were queuing to see the festival’s (very) sold-out mainstage theatrical production. I was lucky to get in, when someone had a spare ticket. Meanwhile, it was fun to look at the festival’s very striking visual art exhibition (curated by Elsa Robinson) on the walls of the lobby.   

Ogboingba Tries To Change Her Fate, the collective creation of the Artspace Theatre Team, is a new play with a contemporary spirit, inspired by a traditional tale from the Ijaw people of Nigeria. In a high-energy succession of scenes — and a fascinating array of theatrical means in the production directed by Jan Selman — a cast of six women “do” the story of the title heroine, whose doubts and insurrectionist spirit bring her smack up against her destiny.

Ogboingba’s assigned role in “the journey of life” is healer. It’s what she chose when the roles were getting handed out, a comical scene in which some women picked motherhood, or mystical powers, or (amusingly) “relevance.” And we see her amidst the swirling comic chaos of the community  — at the market arbitrating arguments, overseeing other women’s kids, attending expertly to a line-up of medical complaints (she’s the designated family doctor, and you know how hard it is to find one these days.

The spirit of the dance (choreographer Eric Awuah) sets these scenes in motion across the stage. And they’re accompanied by a rhythmic score, played live by a five-member musical ensemble, that includes original compositions by Noreta Lewis-Prince, Larissah Lashley, and Yaw Ansu-Kyeremeh. Some of the songs are familiar, I glean, since the audience sings and hums along: this is a participation show and an air of informality prevails. Whittyn Jason’s set, props, and lighting design is a full participant in the playfulness of the enterprise, with gauzy veils that separate supreme beings from the proletariat, or blue silk rivers, or white ocean waves. The costumes are by Merlin Uwalaka.

The women are savvy and congenial, jostling over money or trying to enlist Ogboingba as a babysitter. And the cast plays the unruly kids too, both young ones (with giant bows on their heads) and moody teenagers. When Ogboingba discovers that she is dissatisfied with her destiny, “something’s not right…. I did not choose not have children; I want my own child,” they are, first, taken aback. She is needed, everyone says, in her traditional role. And then the forces of fate really line up against our heroine.

We see her, with strings attached, a stylized theatrical image that speaks to every woman now. We see her climbing a teeter-y assortment of white ladders, hand-held, on her journey towards the Creator. “Who are you to think you can speak to the ultimate being?”

It’s an ingenious assortment of images that sets about capturing the predicament of women who feel stuck with something they felt they wanted at the time, but doesn’t fit any more. And we can’t help hoping that Ogboingba will prevail. The enthusiasm of the opening night crowd felt like a real communal response.          

I left before the party, and the live music (which included the musicians who had accompanied the play). Ogboingba Tried To Change Her Fate continues through Saturday. Friday and Saturday’s festival lineup includes poetry and dance shows, with workshops, food trucks, and live music. Full schedule and tickets: theatrenetwork.ca. 12thnight got to talk to the director Jan Selman and creator/performers Lebo Disele and Yasmine Lewis-Clarke in a preview.

The Ribbon Rouge Foundation’s Jabulani Arts Festival runs through Saturday at the Roxy, 10708 124 St. Tickets and full schedule: theatrenetwork.ca.

Continuing:

•At Rapid Fire Theatre’s Exchange, through Saturday, enter the “realm of improvised nerdery” as billed. That would be the impossibly ingenious Improvised Dungeons & Dragons, led by the impossibly ingenious Dungeon Master Mark Meer, and fuelled by audience suggestions. Tickets: rapidfiretheatre.com.

•At the Citadel, the sound of music is dominated by the clang of swords in a comic swashbuckler adaptation of The Three Musketeers that includes a lot of thrust and parry and gorgeous costumes. Daryl Cloran’s production runs through May 12. Check out 12night’s preview with fight director Jonathan Hawley Purvis who has the 17-member cast hanging off chandeliers. And the review is here.

Daniel Fong and John Ullyatt in The Three Musketeers, Citadel Theatre. Photo by Nanc Price.

•At the Varscona, Shadow Theatre’s production of Tiny Beautiful Things, adapted by playwright Nia Vardalos from a collection of advice columns. It’s not exactly a play, in truth. But Michelle Todd is thoughtfully captivating as the columnist who consults her own life experience instead of bookish authority as she listens sympathetically to letters from assorted people (played by the other three actors of John Hudson’s cast) who feel up against it. It runs through May 12. Tickets: shadowtheatre.org. The 12thnight review is here.