Review: Fela! The Concert at The Civic

Adesola Osakalumi as Fela Kuti in the show Fela! The Concert.

As befits the roiling music and oversized personality of the Nigerian pan-African political lightning rod and creator of Afrobeat, the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, this 90 minute, stripped-down version of the award-winning Broadway musical Fela! is built large: 18 performers on stage (not including singer-narrator Adesola Osakalumi as Fela), and three are percussion players.

This vigorous production is a narrow-focus musical sketch of Fela's extraordinary life - incendiary and confrontational politics coupled with powerfully rhythmic, lyrically educative music - which comes with physicality, sexuality and sensuality in its dance, and a punch from the bottom through the driving percussion.

The man who rightly claimed "music is the weapon" is not fleshed out however because of the limitations of the reductive treatment, and the sheer complexity of his personality.

Fela! The Concert is therefore an enjoyable musical and a useful introduction to a firebrand whose stand against corruption, politicians, international corporations and the military from the 70s until his death in 97 seems remarkable in an age when political engagement can be reduced to a tweet or on-line petition.

The storyline sketches in his politicisation (notably Black Panther politics of the late 60s) and in song after song - some with surtitles - we hear him call out his targets to the driving music he created.

Osakalumi is a strong, central stage presence if not possessing quite the commanding voice required to convey the inner fury of Fela's character (who appears to speak for himself in period footage).

The disciplined music and exceptional dancers carry the lesser moments, the staging, delivery and back-projections make Zombie and ITT compelling, and singer Ismael Kouyate - who possesses the cut-through power of Salif Keita and doesn't require a microphone - is outstanding among the engaging cast.

Against the backdrop of flames and turmoil they give an excellent account of the pivotal song Sorrow Tears and Blood which Fela wrote after the Nigerian military raided his compound in Lagos, destroyed it, raped and beat the occupants, and arrested him.

What is only alluded to - and given the prominence of his influential, supportive mother and early Nigerian feminist Funmilayo in his life, and here in the early part of the production - is that Funmilayo died as a result of the incident. That seems an opportunity lost to add emotional depth.

Being a distillation of the Broadway production, Fela! The Concert can only scrape the surface of Fela's politics and personality - who goes to the theatre for a political education these days anyway? - but is a powerful conversation starter and a thoroughly enjoyable, professional theatrical production which understandably drew the opening night audience to its feet.

Fela! The Concert plays March 20, 21 and 22 at The Civic.