Wale Ojo to Play Elesin Oba

Ferdinand Ekechukwu

On a hot day in humid Lagos, I strolled into Digitrack Studios at Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos for a chat with actor Wale Ojo. It is not unlikely you meet the renowned thespian at Digitrack Studios which is the main production hub for Ojo’s company, named New Nigeria Cinema Productions Ltd, when he is not on set or in Fulham, West London.

He has just been cast to play Elesin Oba in Wole Soyinka’s classic play – which won him the Nobel Prize for Literature – Death and The King’s Horseman. He’s fascinated by the offering. Set in the ancient Oyo Kingdom, the play is based imaginatively on actual real life events which took place in the town of Oyo in 1946.

The King, Alaafin of Oyo suffers demise and by ancient custom and tradition, the King’s horseman must follow him to the world of the ancestors simply by willing himself to death aided by ritual tradition. It is a classic piece of African literature that is held highly by academics and theatre practitioners worldwide.

Wale Ojo, was offered the role by Utopia Theatre and the play is to be staged at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. The last production of DATKH in the UK was at the National Theatre at the Southbank in London by the Royal National Theatre Company of England.

It was directed by Rufus Norris and starred Nonso Anozie as the king’s horseman, Kobna Holbrook Smith as Olunde and the wonderful Lucian Msamati as Mr. Pilkings. The last time the play was produced in Nigeria was by Bolanle Austin-Peters at the Terra Kukture Theatre and it starred Olarotimi Fakunle as Elesin Oba in 2021. Mawuyon Ogun played Iyaloja and Moshood Fatah played Olunde in the BAP production.

“I have actually had an association with this play for a while, Wale Ojo recalls. “I first voiced Olohun Iyo, could have been some 30 years ago with the amazing Clarke Peters playing Elesin Oba in a radio production for the BBC Radio. Then in 2004 or thereabouts I played Olunde for the National Theatre of Nigeria in a play directed by Ahmed Yerimah and it starred Olu Jacobs as Elesin Oba.

“It was meant to celebrate Soyinka on his 70th birthday. Fast forward 20 years and it’s time to play the king’s horseman. So it’s all rather timely and exciting. I had actually been researching the play for a while now as Biyi Bandele of blessed memory had offered me the part about two years ago before he sadly passed away.

“So I am hopefully bringing all that knowledge to the role when we hit the Crucible stage in February.” DATKH will be performed at the Crucible Theatre stage from February 3rd till the 8th February 2025. It is a co-production between the Crucible Theatre and the Utopia Theatre Company and also produced by Tom Dixon for Utopia Theatre.”

The play, to be directed By Mojisola Kareem would feature a diverse cast, including Kehinde Bankole as Iyaloja, Theo Ogundipe as Olohun-iyo and Michael Ahomkay Lindsay as Olunde. Incidentally, both Wale Ojo and Kehinde Bankole are both recipients of the 2024 AMVCA Best Actor and Best Actress awardees.

Other cast of the production taking the British roles is played by David Partridge and Laura Pyper as Mr. and Mrs, Pilkings, Nicholas Chambers as the aide-de camp and Roger May as the resident. It’s an important landmark production for Wale Ojo whose first love has always been stage acting.

He relishes the opportunity to do justice to a great character on a great stage, namely the Crucible Theatre stage, easily one of the most prestigious and popular theatres in the United Kingdom run by its artistic director, Tom Bird.

Wale Ojo explains the play, DATKH, essentially is written for the stage by Wole Soyinka, in 1976. It is a deep and complex piece of work that requires a great deal of study, concentration and focus to pull it off justifiably. Out of the safe confines of cinema acting it is a herculean task for an actor to take on, especially as a piece of theatre.

“One can easily compare Soyinka’s writing to that of classical English and European theatre from Samuel Beckett to Brecht and beyond. In some instances Soyinka’s writing surpasses that of his Western counterparts with its incredibly rich layers of metaphors and allegory.

“One could almost place DATKH as a kind of ambassadorship play for the Yoruba culture as it takes a slice of ancient Oyo history to plunge dramatically into the rich cultural heritage of the Yoruba people. Soyinka himself asserts that the play can only be realised through an evocation of music from the abyss of transition.”

I ask Wale Ojo if he is up to the task, he replied: “Well the joy of theatre acting is that you don’t go at it alone. The approach is always from an ensemble point of view and not a one man show. It would be a mistake to think that only one man carries the entire piece.

“Utopia Theatre has assembled a great crew of actors, drummers, dancers and market women that I am sure will bring vibrancy and energy to Soyinka’s play. In my discussions with the director we have discussed delving into the possibilities of performing the play in both the English and Yoruba languages to really give it that rounded and whole effect which it deserves.”

Wale Ojo is enthusiastic that with the powerful songs, dirges and chants that accompanies the piece, you know that the audiences in Sheffield are in for a treat. As for Wale Ojo, his association with the erudite WS continues as he was recently cast in a movie adaptation of Soyinka’s prison memoir, The Man Died – an account of Soyinka’s two years’ incarceration in jail during the Nigerian Civil war in 1967.

The film, directed by Awam Akpam and produced by Femi Odugbemi is on a tour of film festivals across the world and has already picked up awards for |Best Screenplay at the recently concluded Carthage film festival in Tunisia.