A Review on Nanabeyin Kweku Wartemberg’s play The Corpses Comedy Staged at Staged at the University Of Cape Coast Main Auditorium on the 4th – -6th July, 2024..
The play The Corpses Comedy is structured in a way that all the events possibly took place in 24 hours. 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. In the play The Corpses Comedy, There are too many subplots running through the same play.
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.
Plot of the play
The play captures the unending drama that unfolds in Mr.Hagan’s house. I will advise that the 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 as a polygamous man, He plans on marrying side chick 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 they fake the death of Mr.Hagan when he traveled. Stanley sees it as a big opportunity to elope his lover Selina and get 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 side-chick 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 which leaves 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 dead-alive 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. Meanwhile , Esi and Sam still are in doubt if 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 Fetish 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 Mr Hagan kept coming back 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 her 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.
The play was directed by Gloria Mensah, a final-year directing student of the Department of Theatre Arts as her final-year project as a partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre Studies *
This review however concentrated on only the performance that took place on the Saturday, 6th July 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. In terms of exaggerating and placing emphasis on dialogues, she wasn’t too exceptional for me. She was shouting on most of her lines making it difficult for you to hear what she was saying.
The fight between the two rivals registered quite well . However, when the ghost appeared , her reaction was good.
Side chick Delali was quite energetic and was desperate to have the Man Hagan. She also seems to have not made meaning to her lines and few times put up a mechanical acting. She went out of character and was laughing at a comment made by some audience which is very unusual. Nevertheless,She did very well and understood the role especially the scene where she narrated how the ghost of Mr.hagan was pursuing her. . Her latter scenes with the new lover Sam was well played too.
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. In the scene where, Hagan’s demise was announced, Essien should have checked to verify if it was safe to plot with Andoh and take over properties of the deceased. But he just went straight to speak as soon as Martha and the others had left the stage not caring if someone, might be eavesdropping the conversation. Again, Andoh’s posture really added on to his role as an opportunist.
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 .There was evidence of mechanical acting. Stanley tickled Selina and Selina’s reaction was too fast as if she was already expecting it. With Stanley, he seemed to have been reading his lines and not acting, he was sometimes out of character .
Nevertheless, in his subsequent appearance to reveal the truth to Selina, he executed his role well as someone really disturbed.
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. She is one of the actors who really understood her role perfectly and executed it.
To the man himself, Mr.Hagan. His whole life was also played as a living dead. However , he didn’t seem to own the house and his relationship with the audience wasn’t the best. Anytime He appeared in his own house and people kept running, he stood there unconcerned . I could hear some audience shout “Follow them err” , He made no attempt to touch the door or try to open just to confirm it was truly locked . He also seemed not made understood his role well . 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.
The Spiritualist was very hilarious. . As a fake spiritualist, he made it very evident and kept smashing the buttocks of Martha. The gestures made during the first second prayer registered the play as a comedy. it was really captivating . 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 the gods didn’t register well. It was supposed to be hilarious but it was projected as such. He again quoted the age of Esi to be Seven. Meanwhile, Andoh claims he earlier told him is 17 and not 7. Quite funny. My challenge was that he swallowed
The acolytes of the Fetish priest also did well with the absurd ritual dances and entertaining dance. It was just hilarious.
Sam as an atheist did very well. His confrontation with his sister Martha quite exceptional. My only issue was that he added too many adlibs .But aside from that, the way he disgusts and the spiritualist and the fetish was well acted.
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. It was very disastrous for him to shout ” Eii Jesus” when he forgot his line on stage.He made it too obvious that he had committed a blunder on stage. However, he has got some good side, the confrontation with his mother Martha concerning Esi was quite okay for me. His major strength was how he opposed the spiritualist .
Now to the technical team. The set was great to depict that Mr.Hagan was a man of great affluence . I guess the actors didn’t make good use of it or in it my view. Only the entrances and exits were used.They didn’t really relate to the set. Most of the actions were played at the centre Stage. While the apron, extreme left and right laid bare.
The costume wasn’t well pulled. Attention wasn’t paid to Details with regards to the costumes.The costume of Mr.Hagan didn’t project his social status well. As a man of affluence, he needed great adornment , what he wore was just a normal costume for average men. Nevertheless Essien Andoh and the ritualist, Attendants and the Spiritualist were all in beffiting costumes. Martha was costumed as if she was going out. The cowries , Cassock, Rifia skirt all developed the characterization of the actors who used them and made them look true to life. However , Delali‘s costume looked too modern considering the time that the play was set. Funny enough Stanley was wearing a T-shirt with a Chinese inscription in which amounts to anachronism . Poor costume choice..
The wow effect for this production will be the spiritualist and the Ritualist scene where they did rituals to appease to the Ghost of the Supposed Dead man. .
Talking of the props, it was somewhat used well. Only Ritualists and the Spiritualist made efficient use of the props. The Bible,Whisk , ,Chalk, Cowries, Calabash and broom were utilized well. These ritual artifacts contributed to the characterization of the actors. However, . There were some kitchen stools on stage that were never touched or used in the play. I don’t see why they were put there. Also only the maid Esi went to the dry line, nobody else was there again. She hung only two head scarfs on it. A whole maid?… two is not enough…More clothes would have suggested that she was the one doing all the dirty work. Lest I forget, the telegram given to Martha looked too fake and Martha also didn’t take time to read…She immediately read out the content as soon as the telegram was passed on to her.
As for the sound, they seem to have forgotten that the play laid on their shoulders. Although they had a Good house music which was “Azonto Ghost” by Bisa KD’dae. They didn’t play it again after the first scene, as a house music it needs to be used to fill in during scene break or pauses but the sound seems to have forgotten. The Spiritualist came on stage several times before his cues were played. The speakers were also not too clear . Sound didn’t really do justice to the production for me.
The light crew was great. They handled the Ritual scene with dexterity. Great color blend . Also they dimmed the light to show that evening time in the play. Notwithstanding, they turned on the house light too early even before the production began and gave away the beauty since it as the set was revealed to the audience even before the show Began.
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 65% reaction. Those reactions came from the scenes of the spiritualist, Fetish priest, Hagan’s return as ghosts and some interaction between Essien and Andoh.
And as a lovely audience writing this review, I will rate the attempt by the student director 6/10.
Only that there was a lot of telescoping which made it very difficult to follow the conversation. And then some actors didn’t really use the stage, internalize the lines and didn’t pay particular attention to voice modulation and details.
Lastly the play was 35 minutes late. It started at 7:35pm instead of 7 pm on the dot..
Written by. Mensah Junior Raphael, BA. Theatre Arts,UEW
Thank you for your audience.
,,*From your detailed reviewer.*(0272138148)
