Tag Archives: Ayo-Dele Edwards

Sold

Sold

★★★★

VAULT Festival 2020

Sold

SOLD

Studio – The Vaults

Reviewed – 30th January 2020

★★★★

 

“a masterclass in storytelling with minimal set, proving the power of words”

 

It’s the first week of VAULT Festival, London’s ever-expanding arts event, and 2020 appears, so far, to be the year of powerful messages and thought-provoking performances. SOLD very much fits this bill. A hugely evocative piece of Black British theatre, it effectively portrays our human need and right for freedom.

SOLD tells the story of Mary Prince, a West Indies slave who went on to become a British autobiographer and abolitionist. Her tale was the first published account of a black woman’s life to hit the UK. Kuumba Nia Arts takes Prince’s story off the page and brings her to life in a vivid, raw fashion. Amantha Edmead becomes the courageous woman as well as the numerous white enslavers that Prince was passed between. The back breaking work, the lashings, the inhumane living conditions of Mary Prince’s life are depicted in graphic detail. Edmead is joined on stage by Angie Amra Anderson, fellow performer and drummer, where together they use traditional songs and rhythms of West Africa to intertwine and be at one with the action.

This is a masterclass in storytelling with minimal set, proving the power of words. Edmead is a pro at manipulating her body, face and voice to transition with ease between ten plus characters, all done with such precision that never once does it get wishy washy and confusing as to who she has morphed into – even in regularly fast scene changes. Edmead throws emotional punches that land right in your stomach, forcing you to not sit there impassive and apathetic.

Anderson’s drumming is an integral element of the performance. It’s a relic of Mary’s past, her heritage. The beat of the drum is like a call to arms from her ancestors, willing her to find strength to carry on. Anderson could so easily be detached from the action but director Euton Daley purposefully encompasses her into the story, creating a dialogue between the two women.

A simple metal frame that’s wrapped in rope and costume pieces (created by Nomi Everall) is the centrepiece and main component of the set, giving space for the story to dominate and take the spotlight. The most striking element of the set is the hanging noose that looms at the back of the stage, striking a blunt reminder of how ever present the threat of death was in the life of a slave.

Often slavery is remembered in an American context but SOLD unapologetically reminds us how big a role Britain played in the business of selling human flesh. Mary Prince was just one of the millions who endured the barbarism of the slave trade, but one of the few whose personal, detailed account of it has survived. This is an important story that needs to be passed down and passed around so that we remember. As is mentioned at the end of the show, this is a piece of history still very much a part of our present.

 

Reviewed by Phoebe Cole

 

VAULT Festival 2020

 

 

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Becoming
★★★★

Stratford Circus Arts Centre

Becoming

Becoming

Stratford Circus Arts Centre

Reviewed – 7th March 2019

★★★★

 

“The non-sequential vignettes, often loosely linked, act just like a wandering mind”

 

At life changing moments, it’s often difficult to comprehend quite how you got there. What were the events that made you the person you are and how will they help you make sense of the person you will become? It’s this kind of personal reflection that’s explored in Becoming an autobiographical solo show by Ayo-Dele Edwards.

Jumping between present and past-selves, Ayo-Dele takes the audience through moments that have shaped her into the person she is today. Born in London, at four years old she is sent to live in Nigeria with various family members until, at ten, her mother comes and swoops her back to London, leaving her father behind. Events later in life are also explored, particularly related to her relationships with other men in her life – her brother, the father of her child, her fiancé. The non-sequential vignettes, often loosely linked, act just like a wandering mind would with each sparking the next without too much thought as to how or why.

Becoming is punctured with live original songs and music to express emotion at pivotal moments in Edwards’ life. Each song has its clear influences, from a love song ballad, to jazz, and hip hop. There is also, importantly, music and song in Nigerian style, with two live musicians playing percussion and keys on stage providing atmospheric sounds and accompaniment throughout. The set and props personify her family, with a coat and hat hanging up stage throughout representing the shadowy figure of her absent father.

By virtue of its subject, Becoming is a soul bearing piece drawing on a life’s worth of experience and emotion. Edwards recounts neglect and abuse that took place in Nigeria which are all the more uncomfortable to watch knowing they are drawn from experience. That’s not to say her life in Britain was sweet and rosy. This is not a piece which looks to dredge up and manufacture drama from personal suffering. It celebrates the Ayo-Dele of today and tomorrow and thanks the Ayo-Dele of yesterday. Edwards has created a dynamic and varied piece, managing to equally express child-like eagerness, the anticipation and loss of adolescent love and the reflection and reservation of later life.

Like life, there’s no neat resolve, and the play ends almost back where it started. But there is something strangely comforting in watching this woman try to make sense of it all and share that with an audience. Feel fortunate to be along for the ride.

 

Reviewed by Amber Woodward

Photography Helen Murray

 


Becoming

Stratford Circus Arts Centre until 9th March

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok | ★★★★ | April 2018

 

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