Molly Taylor reports from opening night of Make Me Waka, the first bespoke show Look Left Look Right has made on international soil
The Lagos Theatre Festival has arrived!
Make We Waka is up and running! Or walking, rather. Freedom Park is brimming with actors, writers, singing, dancing and drumming; the Lagos Theatre Festival has arrived!
Our actors perform three shows a day, and at first there are numerous technical glitches. Whatever could go wrong, does go wrong. There are delays, errors, confusion, dehydrated actors, broken MP3 players, and lost audience members. The nature of the show is new to audiences here; it’s promenade, it’s an audio tour, it’s interactive – and we quickly learn that we need to be clear and direct with our instructions.
Luckily a few tweaks make all the difference, and on the second day of the festival the show is operating almost seamlessly. Mimi [Poskitt] and I are almost floored with relief. The actors have settled beautifully into their scenes, and they are getting brilliant feedback. I enjoy skulking around the park and ear-wigging – seeing how absorbed the audiences are in the stories is a real thrill. We feel so confident about how it’s going that we leave them to it and go and see some of the other shows on offer at LTF! Mimi and I are both really impressed with the work on display here – there is so much vitality in the writing and performing, yet each production has used the site of Freedom Park in a singular way.
Theo Lawson (the architect of Freedom Park) comes to see Make We Waka. He was one of the first people we interviewed back in November, and his ideas directly inspired the content of the piece, so we’re delighted when he tells us how much he loved the experience. His wife wants the show to be a part of the annual calendar at Freedom Park!
The festival is drawing to a close, and there’s a genuine feeling of achievement (and exhaustion!) from our actors and our brilliant stage manager. This is the first bespoke show Look Left Look Right has made on international soil, and it’s been a steep but dizzyingly enjoyable learning curve for us all.
It’s fair to say that Lagos has flung its arms around us as theatre-makers, and we feel incredibly proud to have been part of the Lagos Theatre Festival 2014.
Look Left Look Right's trip to Lagos was supported by the British Council. You can follow Look Left Look Right on Twitter @LookLeftLookRt, and you can follow @UKTheatreDance for all of the latest news, opportunities and updates from the British Council Theatre and Dance Team.
