Beyond The ‘Pre-emptive’ Gesture   

Published on July 26, 2010 by TheNEWS   ·   No Comments

Pre-emptive, a stage play, is performed in Lagos as part of activities marking Prof. Wole Soyinka’s 76th birthday

The ignorance of the regular American on matters beyond their experience was on display at the MUSON Centre on Tuesday, 13 July. Some might put this ignorance down to incomprehension of the various complex formations that exist as a result of globalisation: inter racial, inter religious, inter-ethnic and their ‘intra’ counterparts.

At the command performance of Preemptive, a stage play written by Niyi Coker and directed by Segun Ojewuyi, the Nigerian audience got an idea of what Black Muslims face in post- 9/11 America. The performance (put up as part of ceremonies marking the 76th birthday of Africa’s first Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka) becomes even more relevant to Nigeria following the failed bombing attempt by Nigerian-born Farouk Mutallab (the notorious Christmas day ‘underpants’ bomber) on a plane bound for the US from Holland.

Using theatre as a means of encouraging discourse on global politics and diplomacy, Preemptive tells the story of two psychologists in an inter-racial/inter-religious relationship in post-9/11 America. The play opens at dawn in Viv Watson’s apartment.

While both Ahmed (Cortez L. Johnson) and Viv (Tania Dawn Coambs) are in supplication, a multi-purpose set designed by Bobbie J. Bonebrake gives the audience a feel of Ahmed’s hometown in Zanzibar. His mother, Fatima (Basha Sharone Evans) has received a letter from Ahmed delivered by Aishatu, Ahmed’s betrothed played by Racquel McKenzie. In this first letter, a voice-over shows Ahmed’s concern with everybody’s welfare and the need for Aishatu––ten years younger––to get an education. The next letter will not be that well-received, nor will the one after that.

Back in New York, Viv is visited unexpectedly by her Uncle Ted (Christopher Collins), a retired police officer, who doesn’t seem to remember that he is retired. He is there to get Viv to alter her report on an investigation which indicts some officers of the law and a political aspirant. “It’s only a rearrangement of the facts,” Ted reasons.

In the face of impending racial unrest, upcoming elections and a trial of members of the police department, Ted stresses the need for the alteration because the police force is a ‘fraternity’. Viv tells some lies to get her uncle out of the apartment. Ahmed returns soon after Ted’s exit.  The human error of leaving a door unlocked is the catalyst for the eventual tragedy that goes beyond what anyone would call ‘preemptive action’.

The action that unfolds when Ted spots Ahmed bowed down on his prayer mat sets in motion the fear of terrorists that has lingered in the United States since the September 11 bombings.  Ted can’t hide from Ahmed the ‘fact’ that the sight of someone performing ‘strange’ acts “on an Arabic sheet makes certain people uncomfortable”, especially if you are doing it five times a day.

At gunpoint, the protagonists Ahmed and Viv have to defend more than their relationship when Ted refuses to see beyond the profile of a terrorist that–in his view–fits Ahmed squarely.

In between torturing Ahmed and phone calls to his wife, a hint at a psychological disorder is decipherable in Ted. He blows hot and cold at intervals, backing off only to return with a stronger challenge. Ted’s excuse for hitting Ahmed or pulling a gun on an innocent man is, “It was a pre-emptive strike.” At the end of the performance, it is obvious that there was nothing pre-emptive about any of his actions.

Though the antagonist, Ted nearly steals the show off the protagonists with his powerful delivery. His lines were also the most memorable probably because he was more audible than Viv and Ahmed, whose lines were sometimes lost or ‘eaten’ up.

He takes offence that Ahmed and Viv are in an amorous relationship, asking Ahmed what more he wants from a country that has given him an education and an occupation. His grouse? He only had a high school education. “You don’t shit where you eat,” he tells Ahmed.

When Ahmed asks him how he plans to charge him to court for terrorism with no evidence in that regard, Ted says, “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” And the clincher? Ahmed threatens to call the law on Ted for harassment; laughing hysterically Ted replies, “I am the law.”

The differences in the many characters are only too obvious but not so obvious that they can’t be overcome as we see in Pre-emptive. However, as stated by Coker, in an age of limitless and borderless communication tools, the failure to communicate hangs like a shadow even in the so-called ‘land of the free’.

The American experience with terrorism and Ted’s ignorance about African and religious cultures put him on the defensive. Rather than take time to establish peculiarities and react appropriately, he chooses to be on the defensive and to attack anyone that was different and fit a particular profile. The only positive thinking Ted does in the play is to ponder the rationale behind a young man’s choice to sacrifice his genitals in a suicide bombing when a load of virgins is the promised ‘heavenly reward’.

Resounding applause was the reward for the actors drawn largely from Southern Illinois University, who put up this ‘once in a blue-moon’ performance. With the Lagos performances coming on the heels of the London tour, four more shows will take place across Nigeria in Asaba, Calabar, Abuja and Ife before the train berths in Barbados.

The laudable script for Preemptive was conceived in 2008 at a writers’ workshop in Indiana University. The playwright gives credit to the artistic director and theatre professor Segun Ojewuyi for some of the action in the eventual script.

Undeniably, Ojewuyi’s link to the script is reflected in his approach to the material; making the most of the script, the stage and the actors to pass a non-negligible message: the need to know, understand and appreciate each other’s diverse racial, religious and political leanings becomes more important now in view of a world that is increasingly becoming geographically and technologically borderless.

—Aderinsola Ajao

Tags:  76th birthday of Africa’s first Nobel Laureate, Black Muslims, directed by Segun Ojewuyi, MUSON Centre, Niyi Coker, Pre-emptive, Professor Wole Soyinka