Dr. Soji Akinkugbe is a trained medical doctor who said he has become many things in his entrepreneurial life and has learnt from the best. At the moment, he is in a partnership to bring the musical, Sister Act, to Nigeria. In this interview with Assistant Life Editor, TERH AGBEDEH, he talks about the production and sundry issues.
Why bring Sister Act to Nigeria?
I grew up on the campus of the University of Ife and of Lagos in the 70s and 80s and we were very well exposed to performing art, so we grew up watching Duro Ladipo, Ogunde and many others. Our life in Africa is a musical. The way we marry, the way we bury, the way we have a birthday; it is always a story being told in some form of movement, with dancing, with drums. Over the last 10 years, I have had the opportunity to watch a lot of the big musicals that toured the world and a lot of these musicals are either celebrating people’s lives, like Fela! that came here, or successful movies that they have taken on to the stage because obviously the theatre is a more dynamic way of encountering a performance than a film. So, I have always had the ambition of being able to bring one of these big performances to Nigeria, but I was quite emphatic that I wanted a Nigerian cast.
It has taken me over the last four, five years, to find what I will call a suitable technical partner because the truth is that we do have the acting skills, which can be trained, but we don’t have the technical skill. We also lack all kinds of technical equipment and a proper stage in Nigeria. The two that we have in Lagos, the National Theatre and University of Lagos, are in moribund conditions; these are proper theatre stages but they are not in active use. Undaunted by those challenges, I am very motivated by the raw talent that we have here and I think Nollywood has done an enormous amount of work in terms of giving young and old an opportunity to express themselves.
Our first performance is going to be Sister Act, which is a very popular film by an African-American actress, Whoopi Goldberg, and it had a very successful run in the cinema and then went into theatre. It was very well received in Nigeria, so we thought that a general audience musical would be ideal to start with.
You mentioned lack of technical experience; are you working on also training?
First, the team that we are working with led by Delia Sainsbury run a premium theatre school in Cape Town; they train young people and get them ready for the market. The reason I was very interested in working with a developmental organisation is because that is their core business, training. Also, this is going to be a learning curve. But I am very emphatic about having a Nigerian cast. Ultimately, we are also going to have a Nigerian technical team to work with this team. We are going to have understudies for all the major roles; the music director, director, choreographer and costumier.
In South Africa, the industry is about 35 years old; we can’t obviously leapfrog that in one show, so we’d expect that maybe over the next three years, at least by the time we have done six to 10 shows, the basic skills would have been transferred to competent Nigerians. There would also be opportunities for exchange programmes.
Is the script going to be a Nigerian adaptation or the original one?
When you buy the rights to a show, you have to do it as it is. There is not too much room for changes, though you could say, change a city from New York to Lagos.
Is there going to be a Nigerian story after Sister Act?
The thing is that writing a musical is a skill and, as I had mentioned, our life is a musical. So, obviously, there would be a learning curve for them to translate. I mean, they have schools of drama, theatre arts. But now to be able to bring this at a professional level, I am only interested in anything that will be able to tour the world. Fela, as you know, was probably the greatest Nigerian that has ever live. The story was brought to life not by a Nigerian, unfortunately, but by people who know how to bring back content unto a two-hour performance because that is the essence of a musical; how to bring a story out, bring the music out in two hours and in a way that it would have an impact on the audience. So I think that from here, all the skills have to be brought together. The content, in terms of the resources. The human skill is there, but it needs to be touched. There are other things to add to it. So, we’ve got to accept the fact that certain people have certain skills and those skills have to match what I would call international standard. I don’t think, on that level, that we are there yet. We have our stories; but to bring them onto a theatre stage for a contemporary audience, I am not sure we are there yet.
You are going to be doing all these without an academy; just people understudying?
Well, the ultimate plan would be to be able to have a training facility. But the training facility that they have is really just to train the skill. There are many other things; there is technical skill, writing skill. The universities have some of these skills and even people who are practising professionally, but there are not that many opportunities. (Hubert) Ogunde was not a schooled man, but I think he had the most phenomenal musicals; that’s a gift. But his gift was put to work. It wasn’t as though he was gifted and just put up a musical. He worked hard, very hard and that’s why even 25 years after, he is still probably Nigeria’s best musical producer.
How long do you plan for the show to run?
If we are able to push two weeks, we have done well.
People are already familiar with the movie, Sister Act; do you think this musical will be well received here?
You must realise that today we live in a global world, and that is why it is important that anything that is done in Nigeria must be of international standard. So I think that the show, if well done, will sell itself. A live show is about the feel-good factor that you can’t express in words and you just tell your friend, please you must see that show. And that’s all you do. Of course, as you know, cinema has become very successful in Nigeria; but a live performance is completely different to cinema.
In a musical, people are able to express themselves; they are able to dance, sing and do a lot of things you can’t do in cinema. A musical allows you to interact, and even for the actors, the response of the audience is very important to bring out their best. So, I do not worry so much about the fact that people will say it is a foreign story; the fact that it is an all Nigerian cast, I think, already legitimises it as a Nigerian product. If it was bringing a cast from America, obviously there’s no take-away. If you see a well-known name playing the role of Deloris, people will go back to watch the movie and say that is not my own Deloris, you have got yours.
We have had Nigerian musicals in recent years, what are you doing differently with Sister Act?
This is not to put other people’s performances on the spot. I would like to learn from the best; I am a trained medical doctor who has become many things in my entrepreneurial life. But I have learnt from people. So I haven’t found what I will call a skilled person that can give me what I am looking for here. I have seen those shows and I have seen other shows; I know what kind of show I would like to bring to the table. I think I am more focused on what my original dream was, and my dream has been long before these shows came up. It took me years to find the technical skill. So these shows have come up, it is good.
How are you going to fund this?
We haven’t quite decided what we are going to do, but for our interest, we are going to be looking for a long-term relationship with the corporate bodies that have significant interest in building this industry. It is not likely going to be a one-off; it would be what you call an ideal fit. Somebody who can see that there is value in this and that value in it we are going to see progressively. So we start here and we grow progressively.