Mark this coming Sunday on your calendar — and every day before that. These are the remaining days to see FELA! in Toronto, one of the most satisfying evenings of musical theatre in years that is being joyously performed at the Canon Theatre.
Sometimes, it is more rewarding to know the background of a show. West Side Story, for instance, is deeply gratifying, but if you are familiar with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the remarkable parallels with the classic earlier play make the entire experience deeper and more pleasurable.
With that in mind, FELA! is essentially a biography of Nigerian composer Fela Anikulapo Kuti, one of the giants of an irresistible music that grew out of Africa in the '70s — with many American influences, such as Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra and James Brown (who makes a brief, hilarious appearance) — called Afrobeat.
Kuti was a man who challenged the corrupt, violent and often murderous thugs who ran his home and native land into the ground; a man who was arrested hundreds of times; who witnessed his activist mother thrown from his compound window to her death. In other words, FELA! is no “jukebox musical,” in the tradition of Jersey Boys, although it does cover the turbulent life, times and music of a marvelous artist.
It is not often that we encounter headlines flashed above a stage, describing arrests, murders, starvation and oppression as we watch the voluptuous moves of a dozen-plus beautiful, sensual, wild, colourfully-dressed women, all while listening to haunting, melodic drums and saxophones. The pace rarely flags.
It is not surprising that the star of this too-briefly-visiting show, Sahr Ngaujah, was nominated for Broadway's Tony Award, along with Olivier Awards in London.
The award-winning director, choreographer and co-author of the book, the much-admired Bill T. Jones, is not perfect, even if most of the music — nearly all written by the great Fela Kuti himself — is.
Too many questions are raised, and too few answered: did Kuti really marry over a dozen women at the same time? Did he actually run for the presidency of his tragically mishandled country, as his character promises so often? Was his early death in his late 50s caused by his many arrests and beatings?
Ultimately, that is a petty protest, because this profoundly enjoyable evening is less a work of theatre than a highly successful attempt to depict “a last concert” at Kuti's own Afrika Shrine in Lagos, Nigeria.
Fela Kuti was clearly a fabulously gifted musician, bandleader and composer, and if you didn't dance into the Canon Theatre, you are assured to be dancing out two-and-a-half hours later. If only more musical theatre was this rewarding, this memorable and this exciting: it has truly earned the Oliver!–type exclamation mark at the end of its title.
Major discounts are being offered by Mirvish over this last week of performances, so reach for the phone now. What an experience FELA! gives you.
Catherine Foster, Sahr Ngaujah and Nicole de Weever (Image: Monique Carboni)
FELA!, Canon Theatre, Oct. 25-Nov. 6
Allan Gould is Post City Magazines’ theatre critic. He has a Ph.D. in english and theatre from York University and has written over 40 books. His writing has appeared in Toronto Life, Chatelaine, en Route, Canadian Business, Good Times and Financial Post. He is married with two children. Aside from his family, his major passions are theatre and film, because they enrich life with pleasure and meaning.