Jonesing For Bill T…And Fela Kuti

By Victoria Looseleaf

There are geniuses and then there are…geniuses. Einstein, Stravinsky and Steve Jobs come to mind. Then there’s Fela….as in Kuti, and Bill T. Jones.

Having been Jonesing – hahaha, all puns intended – to see Fela!, the high-octane Afrobeat musical based on the life and music of the Nigerian bandleader and political rebel known as Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, since it opened off-Broadway in 2008, and then when it moved to the Great White Way a year later, we’re happy to report that the show arrived with an end-of-the-year bang at Los Angeles’s Ahmanson Theatre. (Photos at top and above by Monique Carboni.) And it did not disappoint. (Having taken the place of a previously announced Funny Girl revival that already sounded like a disaster, what with shiksa Lauren Ambrose skedded to play the fabulously funny Jewess, Fanny Brice, immortalized on film by none other than Barbra Streisand, how could it?!)

And while we’re digressing, we also missed Fela! in Europe this past summer when we were in Amsterdam covering part of the Holland Festival, just not that part – click here for some of our reportage.  That said, we were a tad disappointed, then, that Jones, one of our preeminent modern dance (and commercial) choreographers – he won Tony Awards for Spring Awakening and Fela! – did not make an appearance after the show’s rousing finale on opening night: We weren’t surprised, though, as we know how moody this brilliant provocateur can be; click here for our coverage of the 2010 Lyon Dance Biennale, which included the French premiere of Jones’ Fondly We Hope…Fervently Do We Pray (photo above). Jones had been in one of his famous snits, worried the French press wouldn’t like his Lincoln piece, and, indeed, one French critic we know proclaimed, “It was too American…too beautiful.” Oy! But the fact that he was working on Fondly and Fela circa the same time, wow…

Above: A video of Fela Kuti shot in 1971 by drummer Ginger Baker (he of the band Cream). A known junkie, Baker once made a fabled appearance on our now-defunct cable access TV show, The Looseleaf Report, with The Doors‘ drummer John Densmore. It was their first meeting, btw, and we hope to get the footage digitized in the not too distant future.

But back to the musical Fela! Conceived by Jones (right), Jim Lewis and Stephen Hendel, with a book by Lewis and Jones (is there anything Jones can’t do – besides show up at big-time openings?), the play lives and dies by its dance and music. Fela, who passed away in 1997 of AIDS, is astonishingly embodied by the Sierra Leonean multi-hyphenate, Sahr Ngaujah (five performances a week, until January 22). He not only has thespian and terpsichorean chops, but blows an absolutely wicked sax. As to his queens, his dancing queens, all eight of them (representing the 27 women Fela married), they are in a state of perpetual hip-swiveling, one that combines African moves and force-field energy kicks and struts, all finessed by Jones with staggering, well, grace. Hoo-wah! Talk about bootyliciousness.

Fela! begins on a fictitious night in 1978, shortly after the death of his beloved mother, the government-taunting Funmilayo, portrayed by a golden-throated Melanie Marshall. The setting is the Shrine, a Lagos, Nigerian nightclub where Fela ruled, with Marina Draghici’s eye-popping set and riotously colored costumes (she won the Tony for garb), all helping create an ebullient mood and fabulous backdrop to the African’s extraordinary sound.

And it’s a sound that Fela began cultivating in his London student days while listening to the likes of John Coltrane and Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, with James Brown also burrowing  into Kuti’s musical DNA. It’s this sound that Kuti thought would – and could – revolutionize Africa. Moving back and forth in time, Fela! also includes Kuti’s California soujourn, notable for his having hooked up with a siren named Sandra (Paulette Ivory, below, photo by Raymond Hagans), a wild woman who introduces the musician to the writings of Marx (Karl, not Groucho), and tomes from the American black-power movement (hello, radical goddess Angela Davis, Malcolm X, etal.).

While this is a full-throttle production, including Peter Nigrini’s excellent video design, Robert Wierzel’s crack lighting and Robert Kaplowitz’ pitch-perfect sound design, its success lies in the near super-human talents of its performers. Included are the stellar tapper Gelan Lambert and Kuti’s fierce, on-stage band, led by conductor/trombonist/keyboardist Aaron Johnson. And while the violence that surrounded Kuti packs an emotional second-act wallop, the resultant overly long ghost-and-diety segment during which Fela visits his mother in an elaborate afterlife, could benefit from some judicious editing. (The show’s total running time is 2 hours and 45 minutes.)

With unrest continuing to roil the world and human struggles eternal, Fela! is no less au courant. Even Time Magazine weighed in, its Person of the Year, “The Protester” (designed by artist Shepard Fairey), speaking volumes .

 

As does Fela!, which makes you feel alive and grateful: To be in the theater; to experience bodies in delirious motion; to hear songs that will never die. Long live Fela!

 

About Victoria Looseleaf

Victoria Looseleaf is an award winning arts journalist and regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, KUSC-FM radio, Dance Magazine, Performances Magazine and other outlets. She roams the world covering dance, music, theater, film, food and architecture. Have pen - and iPad - will travel! Her latest book, "Isn't It Rich? A Novella In Verse" is now available on Amazon. Thank you for reading! Cheers...
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