by Adeboro Odunlami

My younger brother’s excitement was infectious as he handed over the printout from DealDey. It was a N500 ticket for a stage play: The Trials Of Brother Jero. I was shocked for a moment. ‘Isn’t this supposed to be a Wole Soyinka adapted play? Why is it N500’ I asked. He shrugged and asked if I was grateful or not. I was. I’m a stage play enthusiast, and I’ll go for any stage play; bad or good, free or for N10,000. So I took the printout and thanked him. But I felt like something was wrong.

The play was slated for 4pm.  My younger brother and I set out around 2:45pm because he was anxious to get good seats. ‘Don’t worry, it’s the National Theatre,’ I said to him, ‘moreover people hardly ever come early for stage plays and the Production itself doesn’t start till the hall is packed full. They’ll beat drums and remix your favorite contemporary music, whetting your appetite till you almost forget why you came. The sellers at the concession stands are also in on the conspiracy. If the play will start when it says it’ll start, then why are they there?’ I finished educating my brother. He nodded and still hurried me to call the Uber driver who had refused to pick us at his ETA; as though he knew something was wrong.

We arrived at the National Theatre at around 4:20pm. I had to check if we were in the right place. There were no artsy-looking people with their natural hair and colourful kimonos hanging around in clusters talking about palm-wine, coconut oil and whatever else those kind of people talk about. There were no small chops and shawarma and pancake stands. There were no young girls in tight blue jeans and Brother Jero branded t-shirts, walking around frantically and barking orders as though investors were breathing down their necks. There were no roll-up banners prepping us for the faces and scenes we would soon witness. No, in fact, there was just a solitary roll-up banner fighting against the wind to stand. And there was only one woman passively trading printouts for low-quality paper tickets. I sensed that something was wrong.

But my younger brother and I went in anyway. We were probably just too early and had caught them in their unpreparedness. African Time and the African Way. So we filled up our seats and waited for the hall to fill up. People came in their ones and twos. Three hours later, we were only about 30 persons in the hall. I became uneasy, something was not right.

Then the play started. I forced myself to relax because even though my younger brother did not say it, I knew he was nervous and hoped the play would make up for all the weirdness. But the play did not. The opening was wrong, the body was wrong, the conclusion was wrong. The diction of the actors irritated my whole auditory system. Their costume seemed like pity work by a carpenter-tailor. It was definitely not what Wole Soyinka had in mind, something had to be wrong.

Suddenly, the play ended abruptly leaving even more to be desired. The 30-man audience was so confused that we did not know whether we were to clap or wait for the prestige. While we still wore confused expressions, a short, fair and thick Igbo man hopped on the stage and took a bow with the actors. I shifted in my seat and glanced at the white woman sitting in front of us. I felt so bad that she had paid rapt attention to this joke of a Production. Where was she when Saro and Wakaa were showing? The Igbo man took the mic, cleared his throat and said, ‘I just want to thank every one of you that have come here. I am grateful. The Nigerian Arts industry has not seen anything yet. We are storming it. Although this is just our first production since I left the Nigerian Senate…’ My mind blanked. This man? The Nigerian Senate? Something was wrong.

Then after his speech, he called on his ‘good friend and brother’, CEO of Zion Oil and Gas Production Nig. Ltd; one of the up and coming Oil and Gas companies in Nigeria; already storming the Oil and Gas Industry. A lanky jerry-curled bleaching young man in cheap jeans stood up and waved at the ‘crowd’. I almost cried out in surprise. Something was not right.

And then came the prestige. The fair Igbo man pointed to the white woman seated in front of me and asked us all to appreciate her. She had come all the way from the United States just to invest and partner in their theatre production dreams; to partake in preserving the Nigerian culture; to tell the Nigerian-story. He assured her that this was just the beginning because with her generous help and support, they’d take on more large-scale projects.

And so, it was then it dawned on me that, I , in my audience seat, was a material actor in a Nigerian scam drama, and I did not even know it until the sinker, hook and line had been digested.

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Adeboro is a graduate of Law, a photographer and a collector of experiences. You probably, most likely, already know her.