Rating: ★★★★★
Entering the Montgomery theatre, the awaiting audience was buzzing with conversation before Ijakadi, a Yoruba word meaning ‘the wrestle’, initially conceptualised and performed by a group of four, was performed as a one-person show. Julius Obende, the creator and performer, alongside Joshua Alabi, director and co-creator, brought this Work in Progress to Open Works Festival hosted by Sheffield Theatres. Afterwards there was a Q&A session to gain a greater understanding of the journey Ijakadi has taken to come to fruition.
Julius draws on his personal experience to show how language repeatedly reinforces assumptions throughout life, leading you to believe that this is what your identity looks like. With this understanding of your identity, unrealistic expectations about
how you are meant to navigate life are created by both the people who perceive you and yourself. Modes of expression varied greatly throughout the piece. At times, spoken word was woven into movement, both across the stage and in interaction with the minimal props. Percussion instruments were layered live with spoken tokens and phrases to create an atmosphere of the constant barrage of language that builds in ones mind.
The use of paint and water at different and intersecting points in the play lent visual clarity to what words can cause to someone physically. The level of intimacy throughout the play stayed with me long after it had finished. Julius explained during the Q&A that one of the plays aims was to spark further questions and action around its themes and topics. This was more than achieved. Leaving the theatre, such discussions were alive throughout the audience.
You come away from the performance with lingering questions that prompt you to reflect on the language you use to define people and yourself, as well as reflecting on where the sense of belonging resides for an individual in a conflicting world that
decides how you are perceived and treated. When an intrinsic part of you that cannot be truly changed becomes the object of debate, how are you to continue forward and celebrate who you are?
This is a masterpiece that truly resides with me and will provoke many conversations with the people around me. I am excited to see Julius and his team take this across the world, as they expressed during the Q&A. They are currently focused on this indoor version, but want to take other formats of the play to museums and galleries as part of an exhibition, and outdoors.
