You Must Set Forth at Dawn (46 page)

We were lucky to make hay, nearly literally, while the sun shone. During that time of year, rain, we had been stoutly assured, was something unheard of—it was like Atlanta all over again, where snow had been unheard of for fifty years! And so the performances were mostly billed for the open air, even though some makeshift arrangements had been made for alternative venues in Siena in the absolutely unthinkable event that it rained. It
never
rained in summer, swore the people of Siena and the organizers—an article of faith to which a mostly reliable quality of the grape harvest had largely contributed. The festival venue comprised the sprawling, sloping grounds of an ancient castle framed so close against the sky that one felt that the sky was simply the roof of a performance dome. Acting spaces were dotted all over the open grounds, usually with a renovated lodge as dressing and storage rooms. Our production, like most others, was blocked and rehearsed all five weeks on the open-air stage.

The presiding deity would prove not to be Dionysus, the sunshine deity of the grapes. He kept away, probably sulking on some distant mountaintop about the cancellation of his festival, thus creating a vacuum that was instantly filled by the dark, brooding Sango, he of thunder, lightning, and torrential downpour.

Even before his full-blown manifestation, the omens were all around us. A third of the company took ill. Worse was to come riding in on Sango's wind. The god of lightning, rage, and thunder had also taken charge at home. A rain—of bullets—was beating the walls and streets of Lagos. The people had risen against a hike in the price of petroleum products, and the police had responded with fire. Now it was all anxiety for the company, uncertain how their families were affected. They wore their apprehension on their faces, and it played havoc with rehearsals.

They had been away from home for more than two weeks. Reports filtered through to us of mounting casualties. The actors spent most of their allowances on telephone bills, calling families and friends but mostly obtaining no coherent—or else contradictory—responses. Sometimes the line would break off in midsentence—the Italian telephone exchange was every bit as rudimentary as the Nigerian. There were rumors of a coup. Panic set in. Tunji Oyelana, the resourceful musician, was able to get through to his wife on an obliging line, his conversation crowded with messages from the company to their families, followed by depression at the thought that bad news was being kept from them.

Suddenly I had an inspiration, probably quickened by my own disquiet at being away from home at such a time. Certainly, my concentration suffered from time to time, however much I pretended not to be affected by the general mood.

I scheduled lengthier rehearsals for that week in order to increase, by one day, the next weekend break. The company was to spend that time resting and studying their lines. With an excursion into Rome also organized for the interested, the company was fully occupied one way or another when I took off for Nigeria, armed with letters and verbal messages from virtually every member for their families. I was entrusted with the task of bringing back truthful news of the situation.

Before late evening of my Friday-afternoon arrival on an Alitalia flight, I had accomplished my mission, spoken to members of the artistes' families, assessed the current state of the siege, and begun to prepare for my return on Saturday. Then I paused. What else could I do to boost the morale of the company? Foremost in my mind was how to relieve them of the tedium of the bland diet—to the average Nigerian taste—that the catering department was churning out. Personally, I was quite amenable to pasta, but for most of the actors, pasta was a diet for the sick or convalescing, and in any case, the portions were roundly damned as inadequate.

The first candidate for the relief package was obvious: the Nigerian farina,
gari,
prolonged deprivation of which has turned many a Nigerian to either crime or religion. To return without even a token quantity, merely symbolic, would have counted as an act of nonconcern or, worse, sadism. I was already resigned to the fact that this would have to be one of the exceptional flights where I could boast of checked-in luggage. Next, hot peppers, some dried fish, other seasoning items, some lightweight delicacies around which the starving Nigerians could improvise on the canteen cuisine.

Then I had yet another flash of inspiration! Or maybe it was simply a burst of madness. At the bottom of my freezer, a long, low-slung container of infinite capacity that preserved the rewards of my hunting forays, was a member of the civet cat family, the
eta.
For months it had awaited the right occasion for barbecuing, stuffing, smoking, and other forms of posthumous torture. It was unskinned, frozen rock-solid, and thus could be guaranteed to retain its edibility, even after thawing, for at least forty-eight hours. I hesitated. It seemed an improbable idea, but—was it really? I did not know the Italian laws regarding importation of live, cooked, or frozen game. It seemed unwise to contact the Italian Embassy for information in case it proved negative. In any case, I could always claim that it was a weekend and the embassy had been closed. Was it worth the risk?

I was already corrupted by my friend Femi Johnson, who would buy cheap, oilproof suitcases specially for the importation of yards of strung-together salami, boulders of Parmesan cheese, and even entire haunches of cured ham from Italy to cater to his special cravings. I bugged him relentlessly over this embarrassing habit but had no qualms about assisting him at demolition time. However, in Femi's case, he loaded himself with foreign matter on his way home, not outward, when penetrating foreign borders. How would the natives take to such a potential health hazard? Coming from Africa, of course, it had to be nothing less! The more I thought of it, the more appealing was the idea. The promised wine festival had failed to materialize; well, we would improvise! As a private bonus, I would be able to boast of beating my friend at his own game, albeit with the trafficking direction reversed. Most compelling, however, was the picture I conjured up of the faces of the troupe as I delivered letters from their families, assuring them that everyone was safe and the nation was not completely on fire. Then, pulling at the zipper, I would slowly unveil the offering.

The decision made, I dug out a respectable-looking bag comfortably capacious for my uncomplaining traveling companion and padded its interior with foam and newspapers. Just before heading for the airport, I inserted the
eta,
crouched in full rigor mortis, and sealed the bag. Saturday night, I was airborne for Rome, arriving on Sunday morning.

Then came the question: What would be my response if some overassiduous Customs officer chose to open that bag? That was soon resolved; he would be assailed by a factual but embroidered introduction to the ways of theater culture. A theater festival was taking place in Siena for which the frozen animal was an essential stage prop. This was an event that involved a ritual for which no stuffed or symbolic substitute could serve. I would create a grandfather of all fusses, threaten an international incident, demand to call the embassy, lie that I had checked the beast's admissibility with an official at the Italian Embassy, scream racism, invoke cosmic disasters—including a wretched wine harvest for all of Italy—if the ritually blessed and consecrated animal were not laid out on its appointed altar within the next twelve hours! In short, I was resolved not to leave Rome airport without that beast. If it came to that, I would even threaten to pull my company out of the festival. What would they do anyway? What could they do? What business was it of theirs, a frozen quadruped that was not after an immigration visa and would soon be cleansed and purified in ritual flames? It was clear, they would have to let the cadaver in.

There was a conference attached to the festival, and Bode Sowande, a playwright, lecturer, and director, had traveled from London for that purpose. We found ourselves clearing Immigration at the same time. Good or bad augury, it was time for some rapid improvisation. I said to him, “Listen, Bode, I am carrying
gari
and a few other items of consumption for the company. I don't know about the Italian Customs, but they might try to be awkward. If we are pulled aside for luggage inspection, let me do all the talking.” Bode was more than willing. As if Customs were waiting specially for us, an official blocked our exit through the “Nothing to Declare” passage and waved us both to “Something to Declare.”

Here we go, I sighed. Ogun, it is now your turn. You offered me this sacrificial beast on a previous outing; now it's your duty to ensure that it arrives at the destination where it will do the maximum good. Am I selfish, Ogun? No. Did I leave that beast in my private refrigerator awaiting consumption by me alone, maybe with Femi Johnson, who will surely raise hell when he learns that the
eta
is gone? No. Do I smuggle drugs? Arms? Certainly not. Sex slaves? Diamonds? Am I a trafficker in any contraband? If you agree that the answer to all the foregoing is “no,” then regard this animal as your companion dog, preserved for offering. Blind those Customs officers to its presence or cover them in illusions like Pentheus at the hands of your sibling, Dionysus, whose festival we had expected to celebrate but who remains frustratingly elusive. Send these infidels dancing to ethereal music in honor of the tropical
eta,
miraculously transformed into the watchwolves of Romulus, guardians at the Roman gates.

I unbuckled Bode's bag, chatting loudly with him about the festival and lamenting what a disappointment it had been that the wine part of the festival had been canceled. I lauded Italian wine over and beyond its own claims and complained that the rehearsal facilities were inadequate, but that this disappointment was constantly tempered by the beauty of the Italian countryside and its unmatchable wines. If those officers understood that much English, they gave no sign. With a flourish, I opened Bode's two bags and let my hand hover absentmindedly over the zipper end of the criminal one. The chill of the frozen meat had penetrated to the outside of the bag, with a film of moisture covering the outer skin. If the Customs officer so much as laid a finger on the bag, even with the dismissive intent of pushing it aside, there was no way his curiosity would not be aroused. I tugged at the zipper. The officer had become bored. He looked over the bags and waved us on.

Once safely ensconced in a car, heading toward Siena, I revealed to Bode the nature of the bag's contents, nearly causing him to have a heart attack. In Siena, when the beast was unveiled, the delight on the faces of the company was, as I anticipated, an unquantifiable reward. Then, to cap it all, the Nigerian ambassador in Rome, Rekya Attah, having learned of the artistes' privations, arrived in her car with pots and deep bowls brimming with Nigerian food. By now, a rough fire had been built by the company in the field outside the Nigerian quarters, and the smell of singeing hair and burned skin soon attracted the other troupes. In twos and threes they emerged from their rooms, incredulous eyes confronted by a roasting
eta,
the size of a medium-sized sheep, at the edge of the rows of vines that dipped vertiginously from the artistes' row of houses.

What followed, three hours later, was a riot of a feast, with the
eta
as center-piece. Music flowed, and a spontaneous festival began. That evening, there were no patrons in the festival cafeteria. The bus that came to take the actors for dinner was sent back empty, prompting even the organizers to jump in and return with it to investigate. Again, the bus returned empty; they opted to remain and partake of the festivities.

Pity that the opening night of the play was one of those events that recall the image of the dying calf. As the rain pelted down, one of the lead actors, Yomi, discharged from the hospital just in time for the performance, hobbled about on crutches, in deep pain from a sciatic nerve. Playing opposite him— there were just the pair of them onstage—the other actor (perhaps empathetically afflicted!) blanked out on his lines, totally and irremediably, leaving the stage entombed in one of those silences that all directors dread. To ensure that he could not extricate himself from the marshland of silence, a bunch of children burst onto the stage wing, led by an Italian mamma, a schoolteacher, who could not understand what the company was still doing onstage—the hall had been booked for her pupils' end-of-school concert, following
Zia,
and she had come to take possession. Struggling to find his place, the actor returned to a point that had been played more than forty minutes before. The Italian sound manager, totally lost, put on the next music cue anyway, judging that it was about time it came on.

We lost the play that night. Still, the spirit of the impromptu festival of
eta
appeared to take over and redeemed the remaining performances.

A Digression on the Purpose of “Accidents”

Few cultures are known to exist where the beginnings of drama have not been traced to the rituals of the society. It goes without saying, therefore, that the fortunes of a play may depend on a respect or disrespect for ritual observance, especially in those instances when Ritual comes knocking on the stage door, unbidden, and is either welcomed or denied entry. My 1981 production of
The
Road
at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago proved to be, beyond a doubt, yet another of those instances of a clear correlation between a ritual/festival denied and the consequences for a production.

My assistant in that production, Malcolm, was uncharacteristically late for rehearsals one Sunday night. He had driven home for the weekend break, and as he was on his way back, racing to return in time for the Monday resumption of rehearsals, a deer ran onto the highway and attacked his motorcar, getting the worst of the encounter. Thereupon Malcolm proceeded to wait until the State Police arrived!

The story was so surreal that at first I thought he had been hallucinating. Are you sure you were struck by a deer? I persisted. No, the deer ran across the highway, he tried to quibble. I was having none of that. Did the deer collide with your car or not? He admitted the incident and even offered to show me the dent in his car.