By Laura Kennelly
In Cleveland for a brief three-day run, Fela! — the musical about Fela Kuti, the charismatic Afrobeat innovator from Nigeria — filled the sedate Palace Theatre with lights, sound, dance, and a bit of biography. Advice if you do get the chance to see the show: Consult wiki (or whatever you favorite source is) about Kuti lest the narrative be confusing; otherwise, just sit back and enjoy the incredible skill and beauty of the dancers and the talent of the musicians who churned out highly contagious rhythms for hours.
Adesola Osakalumi brought intensity to the title role and had all of us chanting “Yaa Yaa” when he asked us to. Kuti’s mother, played by Melanie Marshall, added a note of sweetness (after mom was dead anyway) in an oft-acrobatic duet with her son. Model-thin Michelle Williams brought a vibrant vocal power to her portrayal of Sandra Isadore, a political activist from the United States and one of Kuti’s (hundreds of) love interests.
Wear a visor to avoid the blinding audience-sweeping spotlights. We were lucky enough to be sitting next a man from Nigeria who knew all the lyrics and all the catch phrases. I really mean that we were lucky (even though he talked on the phone at times). He knew all the lyrics, said he’d seen Fela in Nigeria when they both were lads; so while I may not have ever heard of Fela Kuti, this emphasizes the fact that millions of people loved him and his music.
That said — despite award-winning choreography and direction by the legendary Bill T. Jones and music by the legendary Fela (who died in 1997 at the age of 58) — the show ran a bit long and might benefit from cutting twenty minutes or so.
According to Peter Culshaw in the Observer Music Monthly, Fela Kuti said in a 1984 interview that George Frederick Handel was the musician he most respected. Now that makes sense. Most of Handel’s operas also go on about twenty minutes too long. What quality do they share? It must be something about setting a mood, making a constant sound environment to transports listeners to another world, another age. At that, Fela! succeeded beautifully (and yes, so does Handel).
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.
Cleveland, OH 44115