Lagos Day 7: Freedom Park and a literary salon

This morning I woke up at 6 and couldn't really get back to sleep.  So, I got some work done before meeting Kate to head into town.  We headed back to Freedom Park, where she toured me around.  The park had been a prison during British Colonial Rule, and parts of the prison still stand.  The walls of the prison surround the park, and the prison kitchen is now where vendors sell their food.  The layout of the first cellblock has been preserved, but it has been turned into a bunch of market vendor stalls.

Scattered throughout the grounds are life-sized statues representing the many tribes that make up Nigeria, each doing something meaningful related to their culture.

There were also busts of notable Nigerians.  Here's Fela:

Kate and I took a yellow motorized trike cab from Freedom Park to the theatre.  Along the way, we got stuck in traffic, and our driver didn't notice that the manhole in front of him lost its cover.  The front tire went straight in and we tipped up like a capsized ship.  I banged my knee a little bit, and all the passengers got out while a few local people helped haul the front tire out of the manhole. Then we piled back in the cab and were on our way!

The second show went well.  Another small house, but they were appreciative!

After the show, Bryan, Kate, and I headed back to Ikeja to a restaurant called The Mint, where one of Kate's friends was hosting a sort of literary salon about sensuality.  Kate read a few poems, another person played some songs, another improvised a dance, another had us all massage our own hands and wrists.  It was a pretty fun evening full of conversation and new faces.

Our guide/host/fixer Kate reading poetry.

After that, we walked back to the hotel and I facetimed D/R/P before heading to bed.  

Closing is tomorrow!

Lagos Day 6: opening!

I was pooped last night, so I didn't blog.  Here it is.  After having a calm morning in the hotel taking care of UCI work, I hopped in a car to ride down to the theatre to meet for some tech notes.  The plan had been to meet at 1 to take care of a few notes, but for lots of different reasons, I was the only one from the company there at 1.  The rest of the company didn't arrive until closer to 3.  Bryan's speech got delayed, so he didn't arrive until closer to 4.  So, we didn't get to do all of the notes we had intended.  We took care of the video notes and then ran the show.

The show ran well.  House was small, but the audience dug it.  We had lots of good conversations after.  I was really drained (the heat and humidity is taking it out of me).  After the show, we headed back to Ikeja for dinner. I almost fell asleep in my food, but managed to make it back to the hotel to get into bed.  

Here are some photos from my drive to Ikeja to the venue.

 

Lagos Day 5: Kind of a tech

 This morning I woke up to a pounding rainstorm.  The hotel was leaking in a few places as I went down to breakfast.  After working for a few hours in my room to wait for the rain to pass, Kate came to meet us at the hotel and we all went to the theatre.  The hotel lobby is decorating for Christmas!

The venue is Glover Memorial Hall, on Lagos Island far SE of where we've been staying in Ikeja.  As we got off the highway, a man started running alongside the car, asking us for money. Lagos Island is one of the ritzier sections of Lagos, but the industrialness of the city and the poverty of so many of its citizens are apparent even here.  

Glover Memorial Hall is sort of diamond-shaped, with a balcony, a stage that sits 5' off the floor, and an orchestra that is all portable stacking chairs.  

We arrived at noon expecting to set up the projector, handle sound, and get right into tech. Unfortunately, the venue staff got started late and was not ready for us at noon. So, we did what we could, but didn't get started working until 5.30 or so.  The booth has big fan and an exterior door for ventilation, but they were both loud, so I kept the fan off and the door shut during tech (perpetually damp).

Once, halfway through the work-through, the theatre quickly powered down the venue to switch from generator power to municipal power.  The company continued on like it was nbd, since it was nbd - the power goes off for a few seconds at a time all the time in Lagos!  But then, at 7pm, the power shut off and stayed off.  Apparently, the venue staff were upset that we were still working way after our 4pm cut-off. I get that, but also, they came in late and cost us productivity time during our scheduled time.  So, everyone in the theatre who wasn't on-stage turned their iphone flashlights on, and the company continued their work-through in the flashlit room.

After we finished the work-through, Kate, Bryan, and I headed to Freedom Park for dinner. The park is a monument to Nigerian culture that is built on the grounds of a colonial prison.  The food was good; we took a cab ride home to get some rest!

Lagos Day 4: Egypt 80

Today I woke at around 6.15.  Getting closer to kicking the jetlag.  I spent the morning working on stuff for the show and for school - emails, proposals, etc.  At noon, Kate came to pick us up at the hotel, and we headed off to see Seun Kuti & the Egypt 80 rehearse.  Seun is Fela's youngest son, and he has maintained the band that his father left.  Unfortunately, Seun wasn't at rehearsal today, but his band was there and was led today by Rilwan Fagbemi, aka Showboy, was Fela's bari sax player.  The band played for around an hour, and afterwards, we got to meet Showboy and a few others in the band.  After rehearsal, we headed upstairs at the Kalakuta Museum to have a drink; the guys in the band came up to join us.  Of course, we bought everyone a round.

After the rehearsal, we headed home for a siesta, where I got a chance to facetime with H before school (9 hours time difference is no joke).  Then, off for a dinner at a local hotel, and then home to get a little more work done before bed.

Tomorrow we tech!

Lagos Day 1-3: arrival, Fela, rehearsal!

On Sunday morning, I started a weeklong trip to Lagos Nigeria to work on the sound design for an adaptation of UCI colleague Bryan Reynold's play 'Eve's Rapture.'  The trip started with a 6am flight from LAX to Atlanta, followed by an overnight direct flight from Atlanta into Lagos.  We arrived Monday morning in Lagos to a sticky cloudy day.  The airport was chaotic and felt half-finished, but our host hired a guide to help us navigate immigration.  We got through the airport without to much trouble and were on our way.

Our hotel is in Ikeja, a relatively pricy area of Lagos.  There are gated houses all around, range rovers and jaguars driving driving down the street.  We wandered into an organic grocery store, and the manager took a shine to us and walked us across the street to a high-end department store/art gallery.  This being a tony part of a tony part of town makes some of the other bits more pronounced and meaningful.  Most sidewalks are just concrete slabs laid over sewage, and every ten feet or so a slab is missing, so you either have to jump over the gap or step into the street.  There is still visible poverty, and guards at the doors to shops and hotels are a reminder that while rich, this place isn't completely safe.

After a siesta and a walkabout, Kate came to the hotel to join us.  She's a local actor, not in the show, who seems to have been voluntold to be our companion for our trip.  Lagos isn't really set up with a tourist infrastructure, so it's great to have someone around who knows how the city works.  We first headed to the Kalakuta Museum, the former home of Afropop founder and Nigerian musical pioneer Fela Kuti.  His house has been turned into a museum, and his grave is in the front area.

From there, to a traditional Nigerian dinner at Ile Iyan, where had a delicious meal of pepper soup, chicken, goat, snails, fish, and plantains!  

We were in bed by 9.

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On Tuesday morning (Day 3), I woke at 4.30 (jetlag) and got some work done before breakfast.  At 7.30, we hopped in a car with Kate and a friend of hers for the 90 minute drive northeast for rehearsal.  Along the way, we could see that Lagos was already up and hopping, even at that early time!

As we left the city proper, the roads got crappier, and even the potholes had potholes!

After a little more than an hour on the road, we turned off the pavement for the final 25 minutes of driving along a very rutted-out dirt road.  The dirt was red and dusty, but the activity on the side of the road didn't stop.  Vendors, clothiers, schoolkids, motorbikes, etc, were all jockeying for position on the road.

We finally pulled up to a big wall with a metal gate in and honked the horn.  Someone came to open the door and we drove into the parking area/rehearsal space for the Crown Troupe of Africa, our hosts for this trip and the company putting up 'Eve's Rapture.' The space a big open dirt area, in full sun.  Along one wall was a laundry rack and a little coop for a fresh batch of puppies.  At one end was a big house with running water but (as far as I could tell) no electricity (maybe they had it but didn't use it since it was not and no one wanted lights on).  The cast was waiting for us, and as soon as we got settled, they started the rehearsal. 

The rehearsal was glorious.  Segun, the artistic director, translated the text into Pidgin (a thick local dialect that sounds like English if you squint), expanded the cast from 4 to 17, and turned the whole thing into opera complete with an orchestra.  It was stunning. And hot.

After rehearsal I got to spend time with with Segun and the other artists, eating lunch and talking about music and theatre.  

The ride back to Lagos was uneventful, and Bryan and each took a siesta after we returned. For dinner, we me back up with Kate and her friend for dinner at a local restaurant called Tilapia.  No one ordered the fish.