ABIODUN OMOTOSHO
The name Papa Ajasco
is not an uncommon
household name in stage plays in Nigeria.
He is an award winning and a prolific actor.
This is not the first performance of this prolific actor on stage in Lagos or the
first performance of the lead actor Papa Ajasco in TerraKultre, he had earlier
performed at the TerraKultre opening ceremony sometime in Lagos. The play “Palmwine
Drinkers” one of the Ogunmola Stage play has almost 20 characters and Lanpe-(Papa
Ajasco) as its lead character.
Main message of this Kola Ogunmola stage play
is that dance and music is interesting. It is about a Palm Wine Drinker who all
his life likes drinking and all of a sudden, his Palm wine tapper died and went
into a trans and coming back to life not knowing his palm wine tapper did not
die. The essence is for people to sit down and write beautiful stories and
compose songs and to put everything together to form a perfect play.
Director, Lagos State Council for Art and Culture,
the organizer of the Play, Mrs. Olaitan Otulana
affirms that effort worthwhile have been put into the bi-monthly stage play and
promised not to relent in the organisation effort in promoting future event of
such even through the media despite distractions.
Olaitain said primarily the play was staged “to
make people laugh particularly on Sundays”. She encouraged the public in Lagos
to come out and enjoy stage play with families and friends.
She prefers stage plays to Cinema as it shows
the prowess of actors on stage. “Unlike stage play, cinema gives room for that
which is acted behind, a cut and paste thing so many mistakes have been made
and corrected behind the scene and what the audience get to see is the finished
product, whereas there is no room for mistake in stage play as it is shown to a
life audience and so it shows the fresh capability of all the actors on stage,”
she added.
When ask on the impact of palm wine in real
life the actor, Papa Ajasco responded, “Of course, one cannot rule out palm wine,
during marriage ceremony, during burial and any festive period, palm wine is
always there. You see when you get to certain states in the country, they said
they sell palm wine there and you see people rushing to have a taste because
maybe, it has been long they tasted it. Once they see they know it is our
tradition, it still exists!”
A member of the audience known as Jennifa
commented on the play acted at the event and said: “It was actually very
interesting. It shows a lot about finding something we think is missing or
certain means to find pleasure. Also, for me, it is about redemption. It was
just a dream Lanpe actually at the end of the day dreamed.”
“I prefer stage play than going to the
cinema to watch a movie, I like the realism in stage play and acting aside all
of the technical stuff,’ Jenifa said.
As an actor Papa Ajasco can be seen
transitioning from one comic stage to another. “An actor must be able to
change from one character to another. It is talent giving by God and must be
utilized,” the award winning actor said.
There is a great difference in his television
outing and stage, he feels more relax with the stage rather than that of
television. He enjoys stage plays. “In television once you make a mistake they
will say “re shoot” ‘cut’ camera! Action! and all the likes, but in stage, if
you make any mistake, you must go on and on,” Papa Ajasco added.
The Play ‘Palmwine Drinkers’ was staged at
TerraKulture at the weekend in Lagos with little audience in attendance.
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