A Review on Nanabeyin Kweku Wartemberg’s *The Corpses Comedy* Staged at the School of Creative Arts Theatre , UEW, Ghana on the 14th – -17March, 2024.*
The play *The Corpses Comedy* is structured in a way that all the events possibly took place in 24 hours. This is similar to the Greek’s concept of the unity of time in drama which argues that the events should not exceed a day. Not only this but the concept of the unity of place in drama has been argued that all the events or the action should occur at only one place. This idea has also been embedded in this play. It is as a result of this that all the actions take place in Mr.Hagan’s apartment. Every other action is reported just like how Greek tragedies occur. For Example, Oedipus Rex took place at the palace and all actions outside the palace were reported in dialogue.
However, the play( The Corpses Comedy) has a Shakespearean plot that contradicts that of Greek drama. That is to say that, in Greek drama, only one plot or story is told at a time and the action is focused on only one character, but in Shakespearean plays, there is more than one plot in a single play. For instance, in one play, there could be a love affair between Othello and Desdemona, and in the same play, Bianca and Cassio have a love affair, and Iago and Emilia are also in the same play. The same idea is captured in the play *The Corpses Comedy* . There are too many subplots running through the same play.
And in dealing with plays of this nature, each and every one of the actors must put up his or her “A” game because once you fail to do so, you will affect the subplot plot you are featured in.
Now to the synopsis of the play, *The Corpses Comedy* captures the unending drama that unfolds in Mr.Hagan’s house. I will advise that audience pay closer attention to the plot since it sounds somewhat confusing. The play as it is, is set in Mr.Hagans house. Mr. Hagan is married to Martha but is as a polygamous man, He plans of marying sidechick Delali. And Martha doesn’t like this idea one bit. She hates her rival Delali as much as she hates the Devil. Meanwhile, side-chick Delali has a son called Stanley. Now Stanley is also in love with Mr. Hagan’s Daughter Selina. Too complicated to right?
Now once Mr. Hagan gets married to Delali, Selina and Stanley will automatically become siblings so they cannot marry. So Stanley comes up with a plan that they fake the death of Mr.Hagan after when he travels .Stanley sees it as a big opportunity to elope and get his lover Selina married before Mr. Hagan returns home. Now the plan materializes, they fake his death through a telegram and announce it to the Wife Martha that Hagan has been involved in an accident and his body was burnt to ashes . Martha is sad and happy at the same time following this news. In one portion of her mind, she is sad that she has lost the dear husband, at the other portion, she is kind of happy because sidekick Delali won’t have a share of his properties.
Now Sam, Martha’s brother who is an Atheist sees this as the right time to seize the opportunity and express his feelings to the bereaved Side chick Delali. Sam capitalizes on this and advances towards Side chick Delali.
Now that Mr.Hagan is dead, his cousins Essien and Andoh show up to claim his house and all his properties living Martha the Wife devastated.
Meanwhile, Richard, Mr. Hagan’s Son is also crushing on Esi, Martha’s maid. But Martha doesn’t like the idea of the poor maid Esi marrying Richard .
Mr.Hagan returns abruptly from his trip and doesn’t get the needed reception. He is deadalive and seen as a ghost. Everyone in the town runs at the sight of him. Mr.Hagan becomes alienated from his own house as the wife and everyone becomes afraid of him. But Esi and Sam still are in doubt that the man is truly dead. For Esi, the telegram announcing the death of Mr.Hagan looks fake to her, and for Sam who doesn’t believe in Supernaturals, the idea of Ghosts sounds too foolish to him because He believes they don’t exist.
Martha employs the services of the Spiritualist and Andoh also calls on the Festish priest to drive away the supposed ghost of Mr.Hagan who according to them is hovering around in the house because He didn’t “die well” . All these rituals prove futile as the Mr Hagan kept back coming home.
Meanwhile, Stanley returns from his elopement and is disturbed that the plan has failed and the consequences will be difficult to bear alone. Stanley confides in his Mother Delali and his New lover Sam and unravels the whole plot to kill Mr.Hgan while alive to them.
At the climax of the drama, Esi makes a daring move to touch Mr.Hagan to confirm that he is not a ghost, she hugs him tightly when she finds out that He is a human and not a Ghost. Hagan finds solace in Esi who redeems him from the illusion that he is a ghost. Martha also gets relieved that Hagan is alive. Just then, Delali and Sam rush in to apologize on the behalf of Stanley for causing such a calamity.
At the falling action and the resolution, Mr Hagan forgives Stanley and Selina, He also aborts his plans of getting married to Sidechick Delali. This automatically gives Sam the liberty to have Delali, Selina to have Stanley, and most importantly, Martha thanks Esi for saving the situation and gives her the green light to Richard. Before, I forget Mr.Hagan and Martha reunite and the cousins Essien and Andoh lose the bid to take over the deceased’s properties. Curtain falls.
Fast forward, three directors namely Dr.johson Edu, Dr. Latipher Appiah-Agyei and Mr. Godfred Asare Yeboah staged the play *The Corpses Comedy* on the 14th – 17th,2024.
This review however concentrated on only the performance that took place on the Sunday, 17th March and and as such comments from the previous nights will not be highlighted in this write up.
Now to the review. The review will look at the acting(delivery of the lines mostly) , sound, set, makeup and costume , light as well as audience participation and then finally score the production based on aesthetics.
With the acting , because the play is a comedy, it is expected that the actors carry the day and make the audience laugh through while they still ponder over issues discussed in play. Comedy mostly dwells on exaggeration and treats societal ills or issues on a lighter note. That is to say that the issue of Mr.Hagan being dead while alive is very serious but the events in the play must project it as very hilarious. In this case ,actors are expected to exaggerate their actions like gestures and even stress on some of the words or place emphasis on some of dialogue to create this mood of comedy.
It is also expected that the actors understand their roles and internalize the character they are playing to ensure what is called *believability* A good actor should pull the other actors along and their presence should be felt on stage.
Commenting on the acting, the focus will be on the individual characters. Namely Martha, Hagan, Essien, Andoh, Stanley, Selina, Esi, Spiritualist, fetish priest, Sam ,Richard, Delali and the other extras.
Martha is the wife of the polygamous Hagan. At the beginning of the play , she started on a good note with the banter with sidechick Delaili. The fight between the two rivals registered well . Side chick Delali owned the staged and was desperate to have the Man. In terms of exaggerating and placing emphasis on dialogues, I will commend. She did very well and understood the role especially the scene where she narrated how the ghost of Mr.hagan was pursuing her. She stressed on words like ” fire out of the mouth of the ghost ” Her exaggeration gave a true illustration of how ghosts are perceived to be . Again, she occasionally touched her big breast to show what she has got over Martha to win the battle for Hagan. Good acting. Her latter scenes with the new lover Sam was well played too. My only issue with her is she couldn’t drop her Nigerian accent which made her sound differently amongst the actors.
With Martha the wife, at the beginning of the play , she seemed to be reading most of the lines and wasn’t really acting. It was same until the ghost appeared ,that was when she got into full character. She equally did well.
Also, Andoh and Essien also demonstrated good acting.Their chemistry was good. Right from the plotting to take over the properties till the end of the play. Although they were related by blood, it still didn’t stop them from fighting over the poor maid Esi. Essien really killed the role.The Way he walks to exit and enter the house is very hilarious. He did really well.
Now to the planners and the plotters, the love birds Selina and Stanley. As I said earlier, dealing with sub plots ,one needs to up the game else he or she will sink that part of the subplot. In my view, the chemistry between Selina and Stanley could have been done better. They were rushing over some of the lines and didn’t internalize them .Although they were having mixed feelings, they couldn’t have made more meaning to some lines. Selina was reading most of her lines and too fast with the delivery at the beginning, she didn’t operationalise it .She was waiting on other actors to finish their lines before she cuts in. In her conversation with Stanley on the plan to escape, she said “Stop shouting at me” meanwhile Stanley didn’t even shout on the line. I guess Stanley couldn’t have raised his voice on her so that Selina’s statement will carry meaning. Talking of Stanley again, the scene where Selina promised to do anything for him for the sake of love, Stanley knowing that faking the death of one’s father as a sign of love will be very difficult , he should have stressed on the word “Anything ” to create the impression that this particular request is a heavy one.
Nevertheless, in his subsequent appearance to reveal the truth to Selina, he executed his role well as someone really disturbed. Before I forget, Selina placed the back of her palm on the forehead of Stanley to ascertain if he was out of his mind to suggest that they fake the death of Mr.Hagan. That action or gesture of placing the back of palm on the forehead of someone got me got thinking if Selina was checking the temperature of Stanley. That gesture didn’t work for me, she could have found another gesture to express her disbelief.
Another romantic affair is seen between Esi and Richard. Esi killed her role as the maid. Her love scene with Richard was well played especially the part where Martha caught them red handed. Esi communicated her role well as someone of lover class yet she proved the most intelligent amongst them being able to decipher the mystery about the fake telegram. Her scene with Hagan carried great emotions. She held the suspense well and touched Mr. Hagan to confirm if he was truly a human and not a ghost before hugging him fully. A scene everyone should watch.
To the man himself, Mr.Hagan. His whole life was also well played as a living dead. He seemed too lost in his own house. At a point , I felt he made this situation look more tragic. That is not to say that he didn’t act well, but I feel since he wasn’t really dead, he could have reduced the emotions in his voice but, all the same he interpreted the role in his own way ,good acting.The way he surprised his wife with his sudden appearances made her collapse anytime she saw him .This deserves some accolades. On top of this, he forgives all the perpetrators of his death and denounced Delali was also well orchestrated.
Now if we are talking of treating the play as comedy, I will give it to the Spiritualist. Wow! very hilarious. Both in speech and gestures. He killed the role. As a fake spitualist, he made it very evident in candle ritual and also looking at the butts of Martha. He had several ways of covering up his fake miracles. His encounter with the Fetish priest sealed everything for me. After bragging that he will manifest his powers to fetish priest, he couldn’t do anything, only for him to say he was in a good mood and could not display his powers at the moment. A great escape route for him.
Talking of the fetish priest , He also did well with his rituals to drive away the ghost of the deceased. He seemed like someone with great power only to be caught that he was only taking cues from Andoh and that he didn’t know anything about Hagan’s Family. His request that Esi be given out to serve the gods as a ranson to appease to the gods was also hilarious. He again quoted the age of Esi to be Seven. Meanwhile, Andoh claims he earlier told him is 17 and not 7. Very funny.
The acolytes of the Fetish priest also did well with the funny ritual dances and responses to his chants.
Sam as an atheist executed his role very well. His confrontation with his sister Martha was great. Just that he forgot some lines at the start, I guess the promoter didn’t feed him well. But aside that, the way he disgusts and hastes the spiritualist and the fetish was well acted. Anyone in his position as atheist would behave the same way. I guess it paid off because at the end , It turned out that he was right about that all those beliefs of ghosts were illusion and the fetish and the spitualisist were all fake..
The last character to be touched on is Richard. For me Richard swallowed most of his words and you could hardly hear the words. The words didn’t stand out and his intonations or inflections were not too convincing for me. However, he has got some good side, the confrontation with his mother Martha concerning Esi was quite okay for me. Not too special to show to relationship between mother and daughter. His major strength was how he vehemently fought against the spiritualist .
Now to the technical team. The set was great to depict that Mr.Hagan was a man of great affluence . it was a story building and I guess the actors didn’t make good use of it or in it my view. No body climbed to the top floor. Only the entrances and exits were used.They didn’t really relate to the set.
The costumes were well pulled. The costume of Mr.Hagan sealed his social status, Essien Andoh and the ritualist were all in good costumes. The wow effect was the snake that was hanged around the network of the fetish priest.Really believable.
Talking of the props, it was somewhat used. Only Mr.Hagan touched the tap on stage and used it . There were some baskets on stage there were never touched or used in the play. I don’t see why they were put there. Only the maid Esi, went to the dry line, no body else was there again. It may suggest that she was the one doing all the dirty job.
As for the sound, they were super excellent. Good house music.
The song for the start was good ” Darling is ill ,give him a pill, … Darling is dead, go home husband is dead”. It really set the mood for the play to begin. Other sounds that were used included the suspense sound and the “maaba osofo ee, maaboo” which translates as ” I have come oo, pastor , I have come. That song played as the cue of the spitiaulist was great. For me the sound team, the spiritualist, priest, Delali, Sam , Essien , Andoh and Marha carried the play.
As for light, I don’t know what to say .The light was on the whole time. They hardly changed or dimmed it to show where it was evening ,morning or night. If they did, then it wasn’t evident to me. I understand the play took place in 24hours which has morning, afternoon and Evening. Light could have taken cues from some of the dialogue of the actors. I heard one character talk about how sunny and cold weather was .This suggests that some of the events took place in the afternoon and others in the evening, but the light was same the whole time from start to finish.
And to the lovely audience, the play is a comedy, and expected that they enjoy and react with laughter. I will say they enjoyed themselves well and reacted above average. That is to say 60% reaction. Those reactions came from the scenes of the spiritualist, Fetish priest, Hagan’s return as ghosts and some interaction Essien and Andoh.
And as a lovely audience writing this review, I will rate the attempt by three directors 7/10.
Only that the production was really gained momentum after the news of Hagan’s death. Again the play was 15minutes late.It started at 7:15pm instead of 7 pm on the dot.. The actors,crew and directors, Ayekoo.
Written by. Mensah Junior Raphael, BA. Theatre Arts,UEW
Thank you for your audience.
,,*From your detailed reviewer.*(0272138148)