As I sip my coffee, trying to get relaxed, I focus on happy thoughts and somehow, what is playing on my mind the recall of scenes from celebrated playwright, Uncle Ebow Whyte’s play,‘Women On Fire’ which is the last stage production I saw, at the beginning of the year. It just struck me that Uncle Ebow’s deliberate musings portrayed on stage has proved rather hugely popular with us, haven’t they?

He has in the last several years succeeded in pulling in record audiences, managing to get us drawn to his brand of theatre, one laugh after the other, almost effortlessly. And from this success, I believe I can safely deduce that those of us situate in this part, south of the Sahara, perhaps, like jesting stagecraft, when you think that “serious” theatre has never quite taken off with us.

Why, we were weaned on this from the beginning, from our story telling, with Ananse tales being of the six-legged insect’s clever antics interspersed with song and prance. So that, when we came to it, and groups like ‘Axim Trio’ took center stage in the 1940s, this was the style, and the one that got community halls packed with town folk. The more song, the better! And so it went on till the 60s and 70s, with EfuaSutherland and Ama Ata Aidoo using the same technique, and then Osofo Dadzie and the other dramas sealing the style with the TV fixtures, till it became most popular with the Concert Party series. That’s what really tickles us.

I say this because, try as they may, when the style of the play is heavy with verbose delivering, it doesn’t catch fire like Ebow Whyte’s formula of using humour and music to connect with the people. At his plays, the whole audience would erupt in sidesplitting laughter every few minutes, making it seem like an easy thing to do.In the last five odd years that he challenged himself and promised to produce a play every quarter, and true to his word, having done so, no one has been able to do anything nearly as comparable! It would seem Ebow Whyte has the magic wand. But, I can just see him, sitting through the night burning oil, scribbling out his ingenuities, every line in anticipation of expounding on point, an idea, or eliciting deep laughter from us. Then the tedious job of gathering groups of young people who he guides to interpret what he has written through drama. You’ve got to give it to him!

This one was touted as the biggest of his plays for last year, ‘Women on Fire’! It did have very many hilarious moments. Ebow Whyte has a way of sketching into his narratives, matters of contemporary relevance, which resonates well. ‘Women on fire’ is a satire that brings into focus, for me, three major issues.

Set completely in the marketplace, Whyte uses a lean cast to confer all three very important issues in a fluid fashion, the way only a master craftsman could. It is a simple story of a master’s degree holder, who, owning and running a shop in the market decided to protest against the mayor of the town who happens to be her ex husband. The incidences leading to how she came to be the chief protester is one thing, and the other is the reaction of her fellow shop owners. Ebow is clever in introducing different layers of situations in his plays, and in “Women on Fire” this is most evident.

On one level is the fact that, it is in the market that the most money is made in this country, yet most graduates regard selling as labour for the ‘uneducated’. Then there’s the layer of the sycophancy of politicians. And then, there’s the viciousness that characterizes how women treat each other.These are the main themes in the play for me, but you have to see it for yourself to determine others, for there are many. 

Using current happenings in society as a buffer, the man on the market speakers (megaphone) says things like, “Yes, yes, diplomatic passport, buy one, get one free!” I found these snippets most exciting and hilarious, specifically as they were subdued sounds that just echoed! But even among the jests, Ebow is able to get some poignant messages across, and he employs a technique where one set of actors freeze on one side of the stage, while another set verbalize for effect! This was used when the theme of the scene was about gossip and misinterpretation, and it spoke volumes!

There’s a chance to see this production again, as it shows for the very last time on Feb 1 at the National Theatre, Accra.