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Abuja
Literary Scene:Adesewo
Stages Zadok’s
Hell Is A Woman
By Jim
Pressman,
Literary Reporter Newsdiaryonline Wed Oct 5,2011
A gathering of Abuja literary society
Abiathar
Zadok,
Executive Aide at the Abuja Headquarters of a top Nigerian
Insurance mega-firm, is Bachama prince from
Adamawa state with a
passion for writing despite his busy schedule. Published poet,
novelist with three titles to his name, he once replied to this
reporter’s query regarding what Insurance has to do with
writing, with a quip: “Insurance is a good way to secure life
and property against the perils of sudden death, fire and other
disasters. So when you want an idea or a thought secured, you
put pen to paper or your fingers to the laptop and it is a form
of insurance!”
This week in
the
Federal Capital Territory,
where another young, unassuming family man, Jerry Adesewo
has quietly but sure stormed the Performing and Literary Arts
circuits of the FCT, as theatre enthusiasts are invited to see
on stage at the NICON LUXURY hotel, Zadok’s latest exploit and
Jerry’s new challenge, a 14-cast, 31-page play (A4 typescript
sneak advance copy!) entitled HELL IS A WOMAN (remember
Dul Johnson’s ‘sweetly controversial’
jokes-poking WHY WOMEN WON’T MAKE TO HEAVEN?)
The four-act
drama opens with a dawn scene and two women Helen
and Amaka fetching water from a tap, engaged in a
gossipy conversation regarding another woman (contradictorily
named Peace as Bobby soon swears on p.8: “That
name is the coven of evil, where wickedness breeds infestations
of calamities unimaginable… do not repeat that name except for
the invocation of horror.”)
Her
identity, really, is kept away from (and the reader/audience who
is thus kept in suspense) for a while. Their conversation
reveals that Peace had kept her husband (named, suggestively,
Bobby) out of the matrimonial bed and house all
night, while she entertained a male guest!
No wonder
that by the beginning of first scene of the second Act, it is
the end of a working day yet Bobby, though free of further tasks
at the office, hesitates to head for home and asks his friend
Musa, “Do the stars still shine where you live?” A
lot more water passes under the dramatic bridge, until by the
end of the series of tricks and counter – tricks by the tag team
of Bobby and Musa versus Peace (indeed!) at Act 4 Scene 3, by
which time Bobby who had moved from Ojuelegba to a modest
apartment on Glover Road in the warmer and fresher arms of
Queen, his new love, and then bang! Peace traces them
there and dumps on Bobby the stockpiled bills for water and
electricity since Bobby absconded … Won’t take the smoke off
your gun, but you must watch this play?
See you
then, at this ‘premiere’ directed by Jerry Adesewo of the
Arojah
Theater-fame?
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