Review Roundup: FELA! in London

Directed and choreographed by Tony®Award-winner Bill T. Jones, FELA! opened in London on November 16 starring Sahr Ngaujah, who originated the role and currently appears in the Broadway production. Kevin Mambo, who shares the role with Mr. Ngaujah in NYC, will also join the otherwise all-British cast for a limited run. The Broadway production will continue its open-ended run.

Fela!, the new musical based on the life and music of groundbreaking African composer, performer and activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, is currently enjoying a critically acclaimed run at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre (230 West 49th Street) starring, in addition to Mr. Ngaujah and Mr. Mambo, Lillias White and Saycon Sengbloh. This new musical is directed and choreographed by Tony® Award-winner Bill T. Jones (Spring Awakening), with a book by Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones. Sahr Ngaujah and Kevin Mambo play the title character at alternate performances, while the world renowned Antibalas and other members of the NYC Afrobeat community, under the direction of AaRon Johnson, perform Kuti's rousing music live onstage. Fela! was conceived by Bill T. Jones, Jim Lewis and Stephen Hendel.

Michael Coveney, Whatsonstage.com: Fela relates his politicisation in America by his Black Power girlfriend Sandra (an outstanding Paulette Ivory">Paulette Ivory) and soft-pedals his own horrendous super ego (the show would have been infinitely better if he hadn't) by puffing sweetly on a big spliff; leading a pre-post-show audience Q and A on criminal records; and introducing his harem (in truth, he married 27 women on the same day and died of AIDS in 1997) of nine wonderfully exotic and sexy dancing "Queens", easily the most enjoyable element in Bill T Jones' full-on, indiscriminate production.

Michael Billington, Guardian: It's a great story, and one told with enormous verve in Bill T Jones' kaleidoscopic production. The dancing is ecstatic, the music lifts the spirits, and the stage is alive with movement ... The show boasts an extraordinary performance by Sahr Ngaujah">Sahr Ngaujah, from the original Broadway cast, as Fela. He sings, dances, plays sax and trumpet, chats easily to the audience and exudes a natural charisma. It is a tour de force. He receives strong support from Melanie Marshall">Melanie Marshall as his mother, Paulette Ivory">Paulette Ivory as the American who turns him on politically and sexually, and from the whole dynamic ensemble. I've never seen a show quite like it at the National

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard: Sahr Ngaujah">Sahr Ngaujah, the one performer kept from Broadway, brings a wired intensity. He's abrasively charismatic, yet at times seductive and soulful. He is well supported by Paulette Ivory">Paulette Ivory and Melanie Marshall">Melanie Marshall. But it's the ensemble that lives in the memory, thanks to Jones's astonishingly tight choreography ... Some of (Fela's) statements were un-palatable. For instance, he condemned the use of condoms as un-African ... While musically impressive, the production could do with a stronger book. The story is flimsy and confused, and there's a lack of narrative drive. With proceedings dominated by one character, we get little perspective on his real qualities and deficiencies. Weaknesses notwithstanding, it feels like a bold new direction for musical theatre

Charles Spencer, Telegraph: Sahr Ngaujah">Sahr Ngaujah, the one performer kept from Broadway, brings a wired intensity. He's abrasively charismatic, yet at times seductive and soulful. He is well supported by Paulette Ivory">Paulette Ivory and Melanie Marshall">Melanie Marshall. But it's the ensemble that lives in the memory, thanks to Jones's astonishingly tight choreography ... Some of (Fela's) statements were un-palatable. For instance, he condemned the use of condoms as un-African ... While musically impressive, the production could do with a stronger book. The story is flimsy and confused, and there's a lack of narrative drive. With proceedings dominated by one character, we get little perspective on his real qualities and deficiencies. Weaknesses notwithstanding, it feels like a bold new direction for musical theatre.

Tim Masters, BBC News: Unlike most NT productions, the Fela! musical actively encourages the audience to stand up and dance. The encore saw the show's artistic director and choregrapher Bill T Jones take to the stage - stripped to the waist - to dance with the cast.

Paul Taylor, The Independent: Traditional demarcation lines are exuberantly, if a tad self-consciously, discarded as the NT plays host to Fela!, the Broadway hit about the Nigerian political firebrand, pioneer of Afrobeat, and polygamist, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. A frenetic mix of concert, dance party and crash course in the career of the eponymous maverick, it arrives in the Olivier boasting a terrific 12-piece band, who intensify the music's seductively repetitive rhythms with a lovely laid-back gradualness, and a bunch of knock-out dancers who are the last word in hip-swivelling, butt-brandishing rapture.

Claire Allfree, Metro: Fela! is no ordinary musical, mainly because Fela Kuti was no ordinary musician. It's both a slick piece of Broadway entertainment and the story of a man whose music once resembled the voice of protest within an impoverished, repressive Nigeria and who, after his death in 1997, spawned one of the few enduring late 20th-century musical mythologies.

 

 

 

 

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