Okyeame Kwame enters vagina affair
The work by American playwright and feminist activist, Eve Ensler deals with various aspects of women’s experience such as love, sex, rape , menstruation , female genital mutilation, birth, orgasm, masturbation and gender-based violence.
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It has been produced a couple of times already in Accra but will be back at the National Theatre tomorrow, February 14 and Saturday, February 15.
Young Ghanaian theatre practitioner, Abdul Karim Hakib who is directing the production, says issues about women are also issues for men and that was why he decided to include a male character this time around.
According to him, he opted for Okyeame Kwame because of his flexibility as an artiste and the general level of consciousness he has so far exhibited about social matters.
“I have been following Okyeame Kwame’s career and I’m fully convinced that he is a personality who gives deep thought to subjects before tackling them in his songs,” the play’s director says.
“He is an extremely versatile artiste and does quite a number of other stuff within the context of the play apart from singing. I’m very satisfied with how he has fitted into the structure I have created this time around for Vagina Monologues.”
Apart from being a poet, rapper and singer, Okyeame impressed many people with his Versatile show in 2012 that incorporated dance, music and drama. He says he is happy to be part of the Vagina Monologues production.
“It is necessary for us all to rise and be part of the struggle against gender-based violence, which is one of the key elements of the play,” Okyeame states.
“In fact, all the issues dealt with in the production affect men, maybe in different degrees, but it is exciting that there is a male character in there to lend support to the whole happening on stage.”
The first run of Vagina Monologues in this country had a cast which included well-known names like Naa Ashorkor Doku and Lydia Forson. They are not part of it anymore but the upcoming production has a brilliant cast of young women graduates of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana at Legon.
They are Obenewaa Offei Nkansa, Elsie Esenam Atiase, Pearl Korkor Dake, Sirina Larsen, Samira Umar-Farouk and Nana Akosua Hanson.
Himself a graduate of the School of Performing Arts, Abdul Karim Hakib, the play’s director employs music and other elements to help contextualise the production in an African setting.
He, however, still manages to ensure that the monologues reveal the sacred nature of the female temple and depict the tribulations the female figure goes through during a lifetime.
Ipass Ghana, Horseman Shoes, YFM, Citi FM and www.artsghana.org are sponsoring both performances of the Vagina Monologues.
