Francis Doku: Wogbe Jeke is a good show
What form would you have narrated a historical account of a people spanning several hundreds of years if you had the opportunity and approximate hours to do so? Will you write a book? Will you write a long research paper? Will you put it into audio visual production?
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Someone else chose a more difficult medium to tell this compelling story. Theatre! When poet and spoken word artist, Abdul Moomen, aka Chief Moomen, conceptualised this method of telling the story of Ghana in a series of productions he named The Ghana Heritage Series, he may have perceived it to be something easy to do, given his background as a theatre arts student.
The first in the series of the Heritage Theatre Series called Wogbe Jeke came to pass last weekend. Moomen chose a production style that would encompass dance, drama, poetry infused with all the elements of a good theatre production viz. comedy, conflict, tragedy and a narrative that would paint a good picture to those who know the history being depicted.
Wogbe Jeke is to depict from whence the people who call it home came to settle in the piece of land now known as Ghana and to illustrate the various relationships, and to a fair extent the tensions, that prevailed between the settlers while highlighting their cultures, traditions and everything that made them who they were.
There were two shows each on Saturday and Sunday and having had the opportunity of watching the first show on Sunday with my eight and six-year-olds, I thought Moomen and his team of performers did great given the time span of the story and how they had to compress all that into two hours.
The story started from the cradle of civilisation, Egypt, through to the ancient kingdoms of Songhai, Mali and Ghana before morphing into the current Ghana.
The story tells of how Tohazie the red hunter settled in northern Ghana and birthed the formation of kingdoms such as the Mamprusi, Dagomba and Nanumba.
After dealing with the north, Wogbe Jeke,directed by Anima Misa, moves to the middle of Ghana to deal with the Bonos by showing some of their cultures, music dance, relationships among such other things that a people can be identified with.
If you have read or studied the history of Ghana, one of the most flowery parts is the relationship between Denkyira and Asante. How the Denkyira demanded so much from their vassal state Asante and how the Asante,through their king Osei Tutu,rebelled against Ntim Gyakari, the powerful king of Denkyira.
The production beautifully brought this piece of history alive with all the pomp and circumstance that depicted Asante aristocratic traditions. Most interesting was how Moomen and his team made sure that Komfo Anokye would take a centre stage and would conjure the Golden Stool from the roof, held by the rope,and how the enigmatic medicine man pulled it down when it arrived. A very interesting scene that was.
The scene moves to the south where the Akwamu and Ga tension, war and hostile relationship led to the Ga king Ayi Kushie committing suicide.
The Ewes and how they migrated from Notsie into modern-day Ghana was perfectly shown on that National Theatre stage. The Fantes and their relationship with the Europeans who arrived on their coast also came alive very well.
There was also the Dangmes and their culture including the dancing of Kpatsa and the tradition of taking their maidens through the puberty rites of dipo appearing right before our eyes on the stage. It did come out well.
There was the Bond of 1844 and then the formation of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) and finally the formation of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) by Kwame Nkrumah, a role played by a balding young man who looked and sounded very much like the first president of Ghana.
Moomen and his team 0f performers of some 150 including singers, dancers, actors, drummers, narrators and many more did a good job. It was a big production ably supported by Unilever’s Key Soap to bring home the historical account of Ghana.
I thought the acting was good, the singing could be better and the dancing was good as all the various dances (adowa, kete, bawa, atsiagbekor, kpanlogo, kpatsa) from the north to the south were interpreted by the choreographers and dancers very well.
Technically I felt the sound was not stable throughout and the lighting could have been better done in the sense that some of the times the spot light was very detailed and so did the theme lights on a few occasions.
Above all, it was a good attempt to tell the story of a people, difficult as that was to cram many years into two hours. However, I think there was a missing glue to hold everything together very tightly.
That said though, this is good show for anyone who is interested in the history of Ghana not to miss. I hear Moomen and team are planning a rerun of Wogbe Jeke and I recommend it for anyone who wants to have an understanding of our history, culture and tradition to show up when it comes to town.