Gregory Nnamdi Nnabike Mbajiorgu stood subsequent to a automobile on the Peace Mass Transit Park in Nsukka. He was ready for the visitor of the well-known sculptor, professor emeritus, El Anatsui, who was put in the following day as Ikedire of Ihe In Nsukka. It was the primary time that the 2 personalities from the artwork and tradition world met. The theater instructor was heat and spoke encouragingly about artwork, theater follow and journalism. At the same time as he drove alongside the street from the park to the College of Nigeria campus, he made positive Anatsui's visitor calmed down earlier than he tiredly went dwelling to relaxation.
Within the morning, he introduced with him a duplicate of the ebook he co-edited with Professor Amanze Akpuda, titled 50 Years of Solo Performing Artwork in Nigerian Theatre: 1966-2016, which chronicles 50 years of solo performances within the nation. “I would like you to learn this ebook and provides me your impressions; If there’s a correction, please let me know. You’ll be able to test it out, he stated.
“I’ll,” El's visitor replied.
A lot later within the night, after the chieftaincy ceremony had concluded, Mbarjiogu took the visitor by means of his life as a solo artist.
Born on Might 24, 1964, and Affiliate Professor of Theater and Movie Research on the College of Nigeria, Nsukka is a longtime monodrama author, having solo-staged his first play, The Prime Minister's Son, many instances each inside and outdoors Nigeria.
“I used to be impressed and influenced by Wale Ogunyemi's groundbreaking efficiency (in Samuel Beckett's Acts With out Phrases), Tunji Sotimirin's efficiency of his solo comedian sketches (Molue), and Fusho Alabi's late Nineteen Eighties performances of his compilation of Luther King Junior's speeches ( Martin Luther King remembered),” he stated.
Nonetheless, he added: “The distinction between me and these pioneers is that I transcribed and printed the recording of my efficiency after 9 years of improvisation tour all elements of Nigeria – with the publication of my solo. The Prime Minister's Son, which attracted quite a few scholarly consideration and different actors enjoying the identical play, grew to become much more standard.
The tutorial can hardly write if he isn’t motivated, and he’s motivated solely by studying, analysis, observations or interplay with individuals within the atmosphere he’s desirous about. “After drawing inspiration from the above sources, I draw and description the sequence of my story after which start including content material to the skeletal line, slowly by slowly, step-by-step till the story takes a smart form,” he stated .
His journey into monodrama stemmed from his want to show to his father that theater arts have been his ardour and never mass communication, which his father wished him to review. He was additionally betrayed by the shortage of enthusiasm in beginning a performing firm. He wrote the script for his first play, The Prime Minister's Son, which finally introduced him to prominence in solo dramaturgy.
Solo dramaturgy, you ask?
Mbarjiogu smiled, “as a result of most actors, like flocks, are skilled to comply with their shepherds, and just like the flock that all the time strikes as a workforce, they aren’t prone to suppose independently. Most coaching establishments practice actors to operate in a convergent mode. Just a few of us, ruled by our essential intelligence, resist such a convergent orientation by pondering outdoors the field and by doing so we gasoline our skill to operate independently and create on the fly. And by doing that, we strengthen our skill to operate instantly in divergent mode.”
The 1990 Dramatic Arts, UNN graduate stated he’s a solo drama author, which doesn't imply he hates multicast manufacturing or all the time features alone. “My local weather change drama is a multicast manufacturing, the identical goes for many of my performs; my experiment with solo drama is notable as a result of it thrust me into the highlight early in my profession. I’ve directed Wole Soyinka's A play of Big, Ola Rotimi's Hopes of the Residing lifeless, Femi Osofisan's Midnight Blackout, Esiaba Irobi's Nwokedi, Shade of the Rusting Gold, Ahmed Yerima's Hardground and Chris Iyimoga's Son of a Chief, to call a couple of to name. ”
The success of The Prime Minister's Son as a solo dramatic textual content motivated a number of Nigerian playwrights to take an curiosity in writing their very own solo performs. The piece served as a mannequin for some, even “Sotimirin needed to transcribe and publish his improvisatory solo, which had lengthy existed within the context of efficiency. Some wrote their solo performs and forwarded them to me for editorial enter, others have been in a position to create their very own solo performs after attending my in depth solo efficiency workshops. Over time, it grew to become crucial to compile, re-edit, and publish our crop of solo performances. Performs.”
After producing a play, The Lion on Exit, for the published of former Vice Chancellor of the College of Nigeria, Professor Chimere Ikoku, in 1992, Mbajiorgu labored in Drama as a Graduate Assistant in June 1993. He continued to develop till he reached the standing of Reader or Affiliate Professor of Theater Arts in 2017.
Mbajiorgu additionally produced a documentary theater on the poems and speeches of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, titled The Hero of Heroes / The Lion of Lions. This was commissioned in Might 1996 when one of many federal authorities's cultural shows throughout the funeral actions of Nigeria's first indigenous president accredited.
In 1997, he wrote a brief play, Trial of the Fittest, which was carried out on the Bridge Water Lodge, Enugu, for the end-of-year retreat of the African Institute for Utilized Economics, AIAE. He was additionally contracted in 2003 to create a drama on water battle decision by the Workplace for Environmental Safety/JDP Water Program in Enugu, with monetary help from MISEREOR in Germany. He produced Wota na Wota, which he co-wrote with Professor Chike Aniakor.
The play had its first world premiere on the Arts Theater of the College of Nigeria throughout the 2008 Nationwide Universities Video games (NUGA).
In 2023, he edited the 420-page ebook The Energy of One: An Anthology of Nigerian Solo Performs, which incorporates 16 works, together with his The Prime Minister's Son and The Gadfly by Ahmed Yerima.
His newest work was fueled by a want to mainstream the educating, studying and manufacturing of solo drama in Africa, to supply the mandatory workbook for a beforehand edited theoretical seminal textual content, 50 Years of Solo Performing Arts in Nigerian Theater – 1966-2016, to we open Africa's first anthology of solo performs, and in so doing, “arrest the ephemerality of solo oral efficiency in Nigeria and show that solo drama has its place as a subgenre of dramatic literature. With this distinctive anthology, we now have succeeded in industrializing solo drama literature in Africa, guaranteeing that this type of playwriting is preserved for the long run era.”
This anthology has lastly “helped fulfill the wishes of all our followers and followers, who’ve lengthy anticipated us to supply this compendium,” Mbarjiogu confessed.
Relating to the method of changing an present improvisational efficiency right into a solo efficiency, he admits: “the tactic is straightforward: you first report the improvised efficiency, you then transcribe the video recording. After a profitable transcription you will note that the skeleton textual content on paper will want literary embellishment to attraction to the readership, from then on you’ll proceed to enhance the blueprint till it meets the essential commonplace. Then you definately ship it for additional proofreading and modifying. In any case these rigorous processes, it goes to the writer.”
He’s glad with the ultimate model of The Prime Minister's Son, “however my co-authored solo play Magnificence for Ashes could obtain a revised version after its first manufacturing as the primary Nigerian gospel solo scripted for evangelical functions. I hope we are able to carry out our gospel solo as quickly as doable. For now, I'm busy scripting my first solo play about local weather change, with an emphasis on how local weather performs out in a household.'
Mbarjiorgu already has it at the back of his thoughts {that a} character he portrays on stage have to be true to kind and lifelike in accordance with the conventions of stage actuality, that’s, “my character or theatrical components have to be adaptable to the stage. realities should counsel to my characters what can’t be carried out on stage, given the restrictions of dwell theater, and choose solely these realities that don’t battle with the conventions of life theater. For instance, I believe it’s impolite to current nudity or sexuality on stage or to overshadow actual blood on stage, whether or not it’s the blood of a human or an animal.
He added: “The key of my development and success within the theater trade comes from my excessive reception of criticism. No artist can progress with out being open or succumbing to criticism. We proceed to develop in our artwork by letting others level out our weaknesses. It takes humility on our half to be fully open to criticism.”
When he works with actors, he makes positive they perceive the fundamentals of characterization, asking examine questions corresponding to: who’s the character? What are the characters' circumstances? What are the characters' objectives? What’s the character prepared to do to attain such objectives and associated questions? “If you already know who the character is, you already know what the character will do below sure circumstances,” he replied.
One of many challenges of recent theater is how you can present younger individuals productions, contemplating alternate options corresponding to cinema and residential motion pictures. Mbarjiogu has an answer. He stated: “To begin with, your materials has to attraction to younger stars. And if you happen to suppose your theater goes to be a tough capsule for them to swallow, then you want to serve it just like the sugar-coated tablets. Sugar-coated tablets on this case would imply interspersing your storyline with cultural indices that attraction to the younger stars.”
For him, the most effective performs are written with a way of the stage. Once I learn a play and I see the characters leaping out of the web page, I develop the urge to supply such a play on stage. Good performs not solely learn nicely, you need to really feel the heart beat of the characters even within the studying section. An excellent piece will not be written in haste. Even when such performs are written in a brief interval, the gestation interval will need to have been greater than a yr or extra.”
August Wilson significantly conjures up him as a playwright, and his greatest play for him is The Piano Lesson. Why? “Due to the best way he weaves the advanced story of his background of racial prejudice right into a minimalist setting, consisting of the previous man, the piano and the small baby who each learns to play the keys of the piano and learns the teachings from his ancestral previous in somewhat.”
