FELA! ABRIDGED
OR
THE $112 AFROBEAT CONCERT
By Gil Varod
SCENE: THE EUGENE O'NEILL CENTER...
...which has been fantastically decked
out in an awesome array of Christmas
lights and artwork, to show you how
REALLY REALLY HARD they tried to let
you know that you're not in a
"theater".
And as we all know, a beautifully
decorated theater means that the show
is PERFECT and doesn't need any other
MODIFICATIONS or CUTTING or BETTER
STORYTELLING. How else could they have
had the time for such ancillary things?
Enter SAHR NGAUJAH as FELA.
(If the 3:5 odds paid in your favor.)
SAHR NGAUJAH
Who wasn't freaked out enough by the audience participation
in HAIR?
Audience is silent.
SAHR NGAUJAH
If you were freaked out by the audience participation in
HAIR, say "Yeah yeah".
AUDIENCE
(timidly)
...uh...
SAHR NGAUJAH
I am going to make a very disappointed look because you are
not PARTICIPATING well, AUDIENCE. Say YEAH YEAH!
AUDIENCE
(timidly)
...yeah... yeah...
SAHR NGAUJAH
(oh no his "disappointed look"
now "looks" even more
"disappointed"!)
That was awful. Now you're all going to stand up. BECAUSE I
TOLD YOU TO, NOT BECAUSE OF YOUR OWN VOLITION! If you don't
we'll wait. I mean it. This show is 2 and a half hours, and
it used to be 3. So I have extra time budgeted.
Audience awkwardly gets up.
SAHR NGAUJAH
Now you're going to dance. I'm going to shout out directions
and you're going to shake your butt in that direction. This
will KILL lots of TIME.
AUDIENCE
Aren't I paying to watch other people do this?
SAHR NGAUJAH
I'm going to bring the rest of the ensemble onto the stage
and into the audience, and they're going to do a half hour of
variations on different ways of butt-shaking.
(angrily)
DANCE WITH THEM.
BROADWAY PRODUCER WILL SMITH
(gets jiggy)
Now that's what I'm talkin' `bout!
AUDIENCE
(covering eyes)
Why do you keep blinding me with these lights?
SAHR NGAUJAH
So that you can't see what's happening onstage right now.
Which is basically me gratuitously pretending to play the
saxophone while we hope to hell that these numbers stand
alone and in place of a PLOT.
AUDIENCE
Can't you hold off on the "endless concert" part till the
middle of the show? Like in Jersey Boys? So we get to know
you fir--
SAHR NGAUJAH
IT SHOULD BE CLEAR BY NOW THAT THIS IS NOT JERSEY BOYS!
Afrobeat goes on for a half an hour.
Which is about the amount it takes for
it to all sound the same when they're
songs you've never heard before.
PAUL SIMON, DAVE MATTHEWS
THE FOUR SEASONS, AND
PROBABLY A FEW OF YOUR
FAVORITE BANDS TOO
It's nothing against Afrobeat. Most of the songs by each of
us sound the same if you listen to three albums worth for the
very first time.
ENSEMBLE
(insanely high energy despite
endless repetitiveness!)
Hey we found a new type of choreograph--
No, wait, this is just us shaking our asses again.
AUDIENCE
(overwhelmed by their senses)
(also by endless Afrobeat)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
SAHR NGAUJAH
Excellent. I'm glad you've all gotten to know me.
AUDIENCE
I DON'T KNOW YOU AT ALL! YOU DANCED FOREVER AND THAT'S IT!
SAHR NGAUJAH
It's 8:40. Really. So let's start the story...
...
But FIRST I'll sing a song about how things are bad and how
we ought to have them be not bad.
Subtitles mercifully appear on the
screen to help you with his thick
accent.
SAHR NGAUJAH
Then I'll tell you about the time I met this girl--
Enter female love interest.
SAYCON SENGBLOH
Hi Fela, I'm finally another character besides you in this
musical. I think you should learn about life from books--
SAHR NGAUJAH
--who I immediately said goodbye to and never saw again.
SAYCON SENGBLOH
(fading away into ensemble)
What the...
SAHR NGAUJAH
So here's another song I wrote. It's........................
.............................................................
Yes! An Afrobeat song!
It also talks about how things are bad, and how we ought to
have them be not bad.
Subtitles don't appear.
AUDIENCE
(now having major difficulty
with Pidgin English)
WAIT WHERE DID THE SUBTITLES GO?
PLEASE BRING THEM BACK!
SAHR NGAUJAH
(singing)
WHITE COLONIALISTS ARE BAD
WHITE COLONIALISTS ARE BAD
WHITE
WHITE
WHITE COLONIALISTS ARE BAD.
THE FANTASTIC ONSTAGE BAND
Um... we're practically all white. Maybe we should play out
of the audience's view? In the pit??
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/
CONCEIVER BILL T. JONES
MAYBE YOU SHOULD SHAKE YOUR BUTT SOME MORE!
SAHR NGAUJAH
Now I'll tell you something about myself because you were all
so good. I had a mom, she was fantastic, but she's dead now.
We see his mom projected in one of
those Harry Potter moving pictures that
plays the same 5-second moving image
loop, over and over.
LILLIAS WHITE
(as a ghost)
I am Fela's Mom. You might think that I'm here to do
something to propel a plot, but you'd be sorely mistaken.
Instead, I'm going to sing a song about how things are bad,
but they ought to be good.
She DOES.
PROJECTIONS
(show us the only bits of
history we'll actually learn)
PACE
(drags)
SAHR NGAUJAH
Oh crap, intermission. Cliffhangers belong here. Hey Bill
T. Jones, maybe something could ACTUALLY HAPPEN here?
ENSEMBLE
You could use any one of us so it's not a one-man show anym--
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/
CONCEIVER BILL T. JONES
NO. What about when Fela ran for PRESIDENT? Imagine if
instead of WHITE PEOPLE for president of Nigeria, there was
(wink)
A BLACK PRESIDENT.
BROADWAY PRODUCER WILL SMITH
Now that's what I'm talkin' `bout!
...Whoa it's weird to see my name with that title.
OH BOY, WILL FELA BECOME THE
BLACK PRESIDENT?!?!?!?!?
SCENE: ACT TWO.
SAHR NGAUJAH
Nope, I didn't become President. Hmm. If only my dead
mother was alive. She'd know what to do.
LILLIAS WHITE
(as a ghost)
Fela, here's what I can tell you. In the form of a song,
where I say how things are bad, and how we ought to have them
be not bad.
SAHR NGAUJAH
But mother, I wrote that song.
LILLIAS WHITE
Why would you actually mention that? You wrote almost every
song in this musical.
SAHR NGAUJAH
But my songs don't move plot! How can I move plot?
LILLIAS WHITE
Tell us about a time you took a crap.
He DOES.
SAHR NGAUJAH
Did that help?
LILLIAS WHITE
Uh... not so much.
SAHR NGAUJAH
How about I tell everyone about how I have like a dozen
wives?
ENSEMBLE
We are his dozen wives.
BROADWAY PRODUCER WILL SMITH
Yeah, that's what I'm talkin'--
BROADWAY PRODUCER
JADA PINKETT SMITH
*Ahem*?
BROADWAY PRODUCER WILL SMITH
I mean,
"A dozen wives? How come?"
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/
CONCEIVER BILL T. JONES
Remember? The dozen wives? From the History of Fela Kuti?
AUDIENCE
(perking up)
No! But does this mean I'm going to finally learn something
about this amazing man and what he--
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/
CONCEIVER BILL T. JONES
EVERYBODY DANCE MORE! And Sahr, why don't you sing another
endless non-dramatic song about how things are bad and how we
ought to have them be not bad.
DANCING
(happens)
SAHR NGAUJAH
And around 10 PM, that was the point where LOTS OF TERRIBLE
THINGS HAPPENED for the first time all night in a PLAY THAT
TAKES PLACE IN TROUBLED TROUBLED NIGERIA.
Actual exposition finally happens,
but only via projections.
SAHR NGAUJAH
Also, my mother died.
AUDIENCE
Your mother's already dead. That was like thing #1 you said
in the beginning.
SAHR NGAUJAH
No, but you see, she's dead *now*.
AUDIENCE
Of course she's dead *now*, it's 2009.
SAHR NGAUJAH
No, but it's 1977 at this fictional concert you're at.
AUDIENCE
And you said your mother died in the very beginning of the
show. Likely because you wanted to use her as an excuse for
songs of yours being randomly sung. Three separate times.
SAHR NGAUJAH
Well let's say there's Timeline A, which is this fictional
concert that you're at. And within Timeline A, I'm talking
about Timeline B, which is my past as-of Timeline A.
In Timeline B, my mother just now died.
In Timeline A, my mother died at the beginning of the concert
or beforehand.
We have to go back to Timeline A to keep Biff from stealing
the Sports Almanac in Timeline B, or else...
I just confused myself.
YOUR SENSES
(overloaded)
SAHR NGAUJAH
If only I had someone to interact with, ANY OTHER CHARACTER
AT ALL...
SAYCON SENGBLOH
What if I came into the story again, maybe even as a
different charac--
SAHR NGAUJAH
I guess I'll have to TRAVEL DOWN INTO THE DEATHWORLD TO GO
SEE MY MOTHER. All of three minutes after she died. I'm
very impatient.
Everybody screams and shakes their
butts as the stage is redesigned to
become "El Dia De Los Muertos" meets
"Disney's Haunted Mansion".
Lillias White grandiosely stands in
what seems to be a telephone booth on a
ladder.
SAHR NGAUJAH
Oh mother, I have spent ten minutes of absolutely unnecessary
stage time dancing among ensemble members in blacklight to
ask you the question: do I have your blessing to leave
Nigeria?
LILLIAS WHITE
No.
SAHR NGAUJAH
I guess this was all pretty gratuitous then. MORE DANCING!
Chorus enters onstage holding those
weird white coffins from the minimalist
2006 Sweeney Todd revival.
PROJECTIONS
Fela eventually died somehow or other.
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/
CONCEIVER BILL T. JONES
THE END! LET'S DO MORE OF MY CHOREOGRAPHY!
AUDIENCE
Didn't he die of AIDS? Wasn't he an AIDS activist or
something?
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/
CONCEIVER BILL T. JONES
Not important.
AUDIENCE
It was in every single press release!
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/
CONCEIVER BILL T. JONES
What, suddenly you think you know something about Fela Kuti?
AUDIENCE
No, but I just spent 150 minutes at a Broadway show based on
his life.
DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER/
CONCEIVER BILL T. JONES
So?
AUDIENCE
So...
Shouldn't I?
BLACKOUT.
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