THEATRE REVIEW: A Slave's Story

When the lights of a theatre hall go off and a play is about to start that you have no seen before, you usually have just one question in mind. One question that has to do with whether this would be what they claim or not. Looking around at the crowd gathered at the popular Milton Keynes Theatre in what has been described at a SMASH BOX OFFICE HIT, it was evident expectations were very high. I had flown from Frankfurt to England just to watch this play.

A SLAVE’S STORY takes you into the history of six generations of slave women starting with Araba who whilst carrying a child for her lover Adama is captured and taken into America as a slave. The story is one of strength as we move from one generation into another. This is not a typical slave story. This is not as angry as ROOTS or watered down like some productions I won’t even dignify by mentioning. This is a fair piece that pays tribute to the African woman and ends in a salute of her craftiness, resolute, hard work, ingenuity, talent and more.

This beautiful piece was written by the noted artiste Yaw Asiyama and ably handled by ace director Jonathan Nii Anang Sowah. Creating a play like A SLAVE’S STORY to be very academic to the academic and non-academic to the non-academic is laudable. Few performances achieve such. The various actresses gave it their all. It was so evident and enjoyable.

A SLAVE’S STORY is a musical in its own right. The role of the choirs led by Peter Daley and the live band led by Steve McDaniels cannot be under-estimated.

The play is educational in many ways. I didn’t know the role songs like ‘swing low, sweet chariot’ and ‘steal away’ played as intelligent indicators of pending escapes.

A SLAVE’S STORY offers a night of poetry, music, dance and drama all in one beautiful salad. Talking of salads, I found the humour aspects of this play really rib-cracking. This was a privileged ran into the past and then have a drive into the present. It was tears to be shed and above all a triumph to be celebrated. This is a MUST see!

www.aslavesstory.net

Reviewed by: Dr. Frank Mofokeng, Frankfurt, Germany