Obi And Clara: A Story Of Forbidden Love
By UbongAbasi Ise
The mix of suspense and ovation that followed the final scene of the stage play, Obi and Clara, at the University of Uyo's Garden Theater arena on the night of Monday 24th February 2020, was a clear indication that the work directed by Mr. Sunday Umana, tusi, on his birthday had struck a right chord, warming its way into the hearts of the audience that filled the venue to the capacity. The play which was a partial adaptation of No Longer At Ease, one of the Chinua Achebe's African Trilogy published in 1960, was a story that carried with it milieu of the twilight period of colonial era as it tells a story of how a young man and woman that had exposure to Western education and culture fall in love with each other only to be confronted by the class system and the age-long practice in Igboland which discourages social interaction and marriage between the freeborn known as Nwadiala and the group of outcast called Osu. In the play, Livingpraise Atang, who starred as Clara, was found to be an extraction of Osu caste, and having come to terms with the bitter realities, she decided to quit the controversial relationship, a traumatic reality that Obi (Oriretan Ifeoluwayimika) found difficult to accept. At the end of the show, Dr. Joseph Umukoro, the Head of Theatre Arts Department of the university remarked that late Chinua Achebe would have been very happy to see the adaptation of No Longer At Ease being played to detail and ingenuity, noting that the work remains the only adaption of Achebe’s work to date.
On the setting of the play, Prof. Effiong Johnson, who was apparently impressed by the general performance on Monday night, admitted that the play evoked pleasant memory and made the story in Achebe’s novel very vivid. He further lauded the director of the play for his creativity and flexibility in deploying simultaneous setting to spice up the presentation. According to him while addressing the play director, “this is the best we have of you. I like your choice of colours; I like your flexibility; it is very creative. The characters that played Obi and Clara were simply the best.”
However, Obi and Clara, as stage adaption of Chinua Achebe’s work, was written by Matthew Umukoro, a professor of theatre arts at the University of Ibadan. The author happens to be a brother to Dr. Joseph Umukoro, the Head of Department of Theatre Arts, University of Uyo. The director of the play, Mr. Sunday Umana, while speaking with The Sensor, said he decided to choose the work because its author has strong link to the theatre arts discipline. Umana decided to play it on the 8th of the nine days of the 2020 edition of Uniuyo Season of Productions, which coincided with his birthday, though he denied not having any hand in the choice of the date set for the play.
Plot Summary
The first scene opened with the members of Umuofia Progressive Union, UPU, deciding to send Obi Okonkwo on scholarship to England to study law having realized that they had over 944 pounds in the union’s purse. Following celebrations and prayers at Okonkwo’s household, Obi stopped over at Joseph’s place in Lagos en route to London. This scene would be the same place Obi, on his return from London, would announced a change of course from Law to English studies to his friend Joseph and would also break the news of meeting a girl named Clara back in London who they traveled back home together on boat. Once in Lagos, love flames sparked between Obi and Clara, but Clara’s reservation on discussions regarding plans for their marriage worried Obi until one fateful night when they returned from a dinner. He had insisted that his girlfriend must open up on her hidden secret. Clara would then shock Obi with announcement that she is an Osu, a member of Igbo outcast class dedicated to Alusi deity. She further explained that she could never marry him because of the degradation associating with Osu caste system which would follow Obi’s lineage forever if marriage happens. Obi reiterated that they must go on with the engagement despite this obvious cultural challenge. He then travelled to his hometown, Umuofia, to inform his father, Okonkwo, about a lady he plans to marry. On ascertaining the identity of Clara as Josiah Okeke’s daughter whose family is an Osu, Obi’s father disapproved any further plans that would link his family to Osu caste. Despite acknowledging his faith in Christianity, Okonkwo stated point blank that Osu is deep-rooted in Igbo culture and would be impossible for Christianity to uproot it. In the last scene, Obi, at his Lagos home, told Clara that his family is strongly against their marriage, and his mother would kill herself. Clara announced she is pregnant, and broke the marriage engagement. Astounded and dejected, Obi wouldn’t want the pregnancy to be terminated, and would not let her go. This is where the curtain falls.
Lessons From Prof. Effiong Johnson
Shortly after the show, Prof. Effiong Johnson, while interacting with The Sensor, said making reference to the theme of the play as mere clash of cultures is a slim way of assessing it. He said the play is a challenge of a civilized mind against primitive orthodoxy, and that Obi in the play could have been the mouthpiece of the author as he seeks to challenge the existing traditions. The professor of theatre arts added that the play has a whole lot to do with an individual rising up to challenge existing status quo in his life.
“The play can exist without reference to a clash of cultures. The play is a challenge of new thinking to an old thinking; it is a challenge of a civilized mind against primitive orthodoxy. Obi Okonkwo, did not only traveled out to read in the UK, he had also grown to see the same society in which his parents embraced aspect of changes and restricted themselves to those aspects only, without allowing the change to affect other aspects.
“The author of this play, Matthew Umokoro, the teacher that I know very well in Ibadan, must have queried the old traditions in some form or the other but we didn't see it to that extent but you could see drops of that in Obi’s character. Obi could be said to be the mouthpiece of the author to challenge the existing status quo. It's more than clash of cultures; it is an individual rising up to challenge existing status quo in his life and in his family,” said the university don.
Prof. Effiong Johnson said the play was serving as a wakeup call to anybody confronted with repugnant systems and traditions, while expressing his admiration for Obi for having to rise up against the ancient practice of Osu system. According to him, “He could challenge anything he deem questionable; things that affect morality; things that affect personal persuasion, and that's not really a clash of cultures."
Johnson vehemently opposed any system that war against his faith and also put humanity in bondage. He questioned why societies practice traditions that put people in permanent bondage, while disenfranchising some people and denying them their rights.
“I am a Christian, and I hold my obligations to the Bible and God, every other tradition is subject to the position of the Bible. There is nobody that should put another person in perpetual bondage in the name of traditions. I oppose to it, and if I have my way I would fight it with my last blood,” he declared.
Play Director’s Commentary
Mr. Sunday Umana told The Sensor that education and traditions should be allowed to coexist, but when the tradition becomes obsolete and repugnant, then it should be discarded.
“As a director, I am always at liberty to do the play of my choice. But this time around, I just wanted to remind Nigerians and the entire humanity that we have traditions and we have education. We should allow the two to coexist. A tradition that is so obsolete, that mars human progress should be done with. I felt that I should bring back this idea and let people know that inhuman treatment is not a good one,” he said.
When The Sensor correspondent queried the cliffhanger ending of the play, Umana said one of the things theatre does is to mirror the society, and is never a solution. He said there is no place in his role to foist on audience what they should accept and what not to accept. According to him, “I cannot come here and force everybody to toe my own line of thinking because if I give a direction now, it won’t be a good one, and would not allow human beings to think. What we do is, we expose the Ills, we present the matter the way it is, so that everyone would go back and say is it okay? If a young man like this meets a lady and they fall in love and things are going on well, is it possible that along the line one thing they call Osu or any aspect of tradition can now come and stop them? Everyone here has a different feeling.”
©The Sensor Newspaper
The mix of suspense and ovation that followed the final scene of the stage play, Obi and Clara, at the University of Uyo's Garden Theater arena on the night of Monday 24th February 2020, was a clear indication that the work directed by Mr. Sunday Umana, tusi, on his birthday had struck a right chord, warming its way into the hearts of the audience that filled the venue to the capacity. The play which was a partial adaptation of No Longer At Ease, one of the Chinua Achebe's African Trilogy published in 1960, was a story that carried with it milieu of the twilight period of colonial era as it tells a story of how a young man and woman that had exposure to Western education and culture fall in love with each other only to be confronted by the class system and the age-long practice in Igboland which discourages social interaction and marriage between the freeborn known as Nwadiala and the group of outcast called Osu. In the play, Livingpraise Atang, who starred as Clara, was found to be an extraction of Osu caste, and having come to terms with the bitter realities, she decided to quit the controversial relationship, a traumatic reality that Obi (Oriretan Ifeoluwayimika) found difficult to accept. At the end of the show, Dr. Joseph Umukoro, the Head of Theatre Arts Department of the university remarked that late Chinua Achebe would have been very happy to see the adaptation of No Longer At Ease being played to detail and ingenuity, noting that the work remains the only adaption of Achebe’s work to date.
On the setting of the play, Prof. Effiong Johnson, who was apparently impressed by the general performance on Monday night, admitted that the play evoked pleasant memory and made the story in Achebe’s novel very vivid. He further lauded the director of the play for his creativity and flexibility in deploying simultaneous setting to spice up the presentation. According to him while addressing the play director, “this is the best we have of you. I like your choice of colours; I like your flexibility; it is very creative. The characters that played Obi and Clara were simply the best.”
However, Obi and Clara, as stage adaption of Chinua Achebe’s work, was written by Matthew Umukoro, a professor of theatre arts at the University of Ibadan. The author happens to be a brother to Dr. Joseph Umukoro, the Head of Department of Theatre Arts, University of Uyo. The director of the play, Mr. Sunday Umana, while speaking with The Sensor, said he decided to choose the work because its author has strong link to the theatre arts discipline. Umana decided to play it on the 8th of the nine days of the 2020 edition of Uniuyo Season of Productions, which coincided with his birthday, though he denied not having any hand in the choice of the date set for the play.
Plot Summary
The first scene opened with the members of Umuofia Progressive Union, UPU, deciding to send Obi Okonkwo on scholarship to England to study law having realized that they had over 944 pounds in the union’s purse. Following celebrations and prayers at Okonkwo’s household, Obi stopped over at Joseph’s place in Lagos en route to London. This scene would be the same place Obi, on his return from London, would announced a change of course from Law to English studies to his friend Joseph and would also break the news of meeting a girl named Clara back in London who they traveled back home together on boat. Once in Lagos, love flames sparked between Obi and Clara, but Clara’s reservation on discussions regarding plans for their marriage worried Obi until one fateful night when they returned from a dinner. He had insisted that his girlfriend must open up on her hidden secret. Clara would then shock Obi with announcement that she is an Osu, a member of Igbo outcast class dedicated to Alusi deity. She further explained that she could never marry him because of the degradation associating with Osu caste system which would follow Obi’s lineage forever if marriage happens. Obi reiterated that they must go on with the engagement despite this obvious cultural challenge. He then travelled to his hometown, Umuofia, to inform his father, Okonkwo, about a lady he plans to marry. On ascertaining the identity of Clara as Josiah Okeke’s daughter whose family is an Osu, Obi’s father disapproved any further plans that would link his family to Osu caste. Despite acknowledging his faith in Christianity, Okonkwo stated point blank that Osu is deep-rooted in Igbo culture and would be impossible for Christianity to uproot it. In the last scene, Obi, at his Lagos home, told Clara that his family is strongly against their marriage, and his mother would kill herself. Clara announced she is pregnant, and broke the marriage engagement. Astounded and dejected, Obi wouldn’t want the pregnancy to be terminated, and would not let her go. This is where the curtain falls.
Lessons From Prof. Effiong Johnson
Shortly after the show, Prof. Effiong Johnson, while interacting with The Sensor, said making reference to the theme of the play as mere clash of cultures is a slim way of assessing it. He said the play is a challenge of a civilized mind against primitive orthodoxy, and that Obi in the play could have been the mouthpiece of the author as he seeks to challenge the existing traditions. The professor of theatre arts added that the play has a whole lot to do with an individual rising up to challenge existing status quo in his life.
“The play can exist without reference to a clash of cultures. The play is a challenge of new thinking to an old thinking; it is a challenge of a civilized mind against primitive orthodoxy. Obi Okonkwo, did not only traveled out to read in the UK, he had also grown to see the same society in which his parents embraced aspect of changes and restricted themselves to those aspects only, without allowing the change to affect other aspects.
“The author of this play, Matthew Umokoro, the teacher that I know very well in Ibadan, must have queried the old traditions in some form or the other but we didn't see it to that extent but you could see drops of that in Obi’s character. Obi could be said to be the mouthpiece of the author to challenge the existing status quo. It's more than clash of cultures; it is an individual rising up to challenge existing status quo in his life and in his family,” said the university don.
Prof. Effiong Johnson said the play was serving as a wakeup call to anybody confronted with repugnant systems and traditions, while expressing his admiration for Obi for having to rise up against the ancient practice of Osu system. According to him, “He could challenge anything he deem questionable; things that affect morality; things that affect personal persuasion, and that's not really a clash of cultures."
Johnson vehemently opposed any system that war against his faith and also put humanity in bondage. He questioned why societies practice traditions that put people in permanent bondage, while disenfranchising some people and denying them their rights.
“I am a Christian, and I hold my obligations to the Bible and God, every other tradition is subject to the position of the Bible. There is nobody that should put another person in perpetual bondage in the name of traditions. I oppose to it, and if I have my way I would fight it with my last blood,” he declared.
Play Director’s Commentary
Mr. Sunday Umana told The Sensor that education and traditions should be allowed to coexist, but when the tradition becomes obsolete and repugnant, then it should be discarded.
“As a director, I am always at liberty to do the play of my choice. But this time around, I just wanted to remind Nigerians and the entire humanity that we have traditions and we have education. We should allow the two to coexist. A tradition that is so obsolete, that mars human progress should be done with. I felt that I should bring back this idea and let people know that inhuman treatment is not a good one,” he said.
When The Sensor correspondent queried the cliffhanger ending of the play, Umana said one of the things theatre does is to mirror the society, and is never a solution. He said there is no place in his role to foist on audience what they should accept and what not to accept. According to him, “I cannot come here and force everybody to toe my own line of thinking because if I give a direction now, it won’t be a good one, and would not allow human beings to think. What we do is, we expose the Ills, we present the matter the way it is, so that everyone would go back and say is it okay? If a young man like this meets a lady and they fall in love and things are going on well, is it possible that along the line one thing they call Osu or any aspect of tradition can now come and stop them? Everyone here has a different feeling.”
©The Sensor Newspaper
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