“Tings Dey Happen”: Confusing… Oil Politics?
Irony is a beautiful thing in life. As the audience takes their seats, anticipating this controversial play of Nigerian oil politics, a small pale white man appears on stage, people stare at him with curiosity. Was there something that needed fixing? Were we about to be told that the show was canceled because sickness has befallen on their actors?
All eyes were upon him when words began to flow out his mouth. Such a curious accent has never been heard coming from a white man. Well then, of course, an introduction is quite appropriate, but little did it prepare us for the quite unexpected, such vibrant characters, all played by this skimpy man with the funny accents.
His brilliant acting shone luminously upon the stage, no baroque theater with fancy backdrops was needed. The simplicity of the scenery was brilliant; a blank black canvas in which the artist would paint and unveil his masterpiece, his tale in which he is destined to tell. Though we are still quite puzzled as to what his tale is. The endless amount of characters and their sometimes incomprehensible “English” brought the audience to the edge of their seats, helplessly looking around, hoping to find a rewind button somewhere or for captioning to appear at the bottom of the stage as they would on television.
One man can only speak in so many different voices before they all start to sound the same. Some characters were quite distinct, though it was such a strenuous job trying to keep up with all these individuals. It diluted the tragedy of the story and turned what would have been defining, breathtaking moments into yet another perplexing scene.
Dan Hoyle, the writer and performer of this show is no doubt one of the best actors I’ve seen, but I would dare say that perhaps he should just stick to acting and leave the writing to the professionals. Intriguing though it was, the play was not meant to done by one person nor was it meant to be seen more than once.