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Theatre Icon, KOLA OYEWO
During a recent visit by the City People Magazine Team to Gabriel Adekola Oyewo, a veteran theatre actor and retired associate professor of theatre arts, Kola Oyewo spoke about his illustrious 6-decade career, his love for acting, which began in his youth, and how he balanced his stage performances with his academic career.
Below he recounts his early days in theatre, his rise in the industry, and the strong relationships he’s built over the years;
How come you’ve been doing this for over 60 years?
“When you are doing a job that you enjoy, that it is not a condition that brought you to the job, that it is what you intend to do, you don’t find it difficult. You find it interesting because the interest is there already. Just like I enjoy acting because I have been acting since my early life. That was the first job I laid my hand on in my life.
You have been acting for how long?
In January 1964, after leaving the secondary modern school in December 1963, I joined the Oyin Adejobi Theatre at Osogbo in January 1964. I started performing on stage, on television, radio play, the Atoka, and the rest of it. After nine years, I decided to move forward and I came to join the University of Ife Theatre at Ori Olokun Cultural Centre. The man who brought me is no more. Uncle Gboyega Ajayi was the one who brought me from Osogbo to come and join the University of Ife Theatre. The base was at the Ori Olokun Cultural Centre, Arubidi, Ile Ife at that time. It was after the completion of the Institute of African Studies building on the main campus that we moved from Ori Olokun to the main campus. Ola Rotimi was our director. We have two other directors, one for music, the other one for dance. The one for dance was a white woman, Peggy Harper, of blessed memory. And the one for music was Professor Akin Euba. But Ola Rotimi was the executive director. We moved down to the University of Ife. And then Ola Rotimi left and Soyinka came. Soyinka became the head of department and the director of the University of Ife Theatre. At that time, the head of department was also the director, executive director of the University Theatre. So when Ola Rotimi left, Soyinka became the head of department and director of the University of Ife Theatre. And life went on.
I had the opportunity of taking the certificate in dramatic arts. We were the first set. Our University Theatre Group members were used to test run the department when it was formed in 1977. It was a one-year course. We called it certificate in dramatic arts. So after the one-year course, those of us who had the prerequisite for degree, entered the degree course. But those of us who did not have, we remained in the theatre and continued our work until very, very late when the opportunity came, I took another certificate in Yoruba oral literature. And then I took GCE, combined 5 O-level subjects with those two certificates and was admitted into 200 level. There, I was in the same class with my son Adeyemi. Adeyemi entered at 100 level and I joined them at 200 level. After the first degree, I went on to do the masters at the University of Ibadan and also the PhD. And I joined the academic staff until my retirement.
How did you feel being in school with your son at that time? What was the feeling like?
It was like a joke. Three years just passed and before we knew it, we had the degree. Some of my colleagues were mocking me that you and your son were in the same class. Some of them turned it into a joke. So we joked about it. Because I knew where I was going, I didn’t let that bother me.
What was your relationship like with all the legends of that period? Many of them were also around the South West.
You mean the professionals?
Yes,
In the theatre industry. Oh my God, our relationship has been very cordial since I was at OAU Theatre and it remains cordial. When I became an academician, I continued to attend film locations. We shared jokes, we shared experiences, we talked, we shared family problems and the rest of it. There were some of them who I was with at Oyin Adejobi Theatre, such as Alaji Karim Adepoju, Baba Wande, who was at Oyin Adejobi Theatre together before I left for Ife. And then some other friends, the late Olofa ina, the late Ogun Majek, and Fokoko. The rest of them, we are still together. Samson, we called him Grima because of the role he played when he was with Ishola Ogunshola Theatre. So the rapport has been there and it continues to be there. They still invite me for their performances, for their productions. And even when I was on active service, they knew how to do it in such a way that it would not affect my job. They would make my own shooting to fall within the weekends when I’m on leave and the rest of it. So we had a cordial relationship.
And you had an advantage that you were able to balance both the theory and the practical. How did this help you as a professional?
Yes, yes. You see, at the Oyin Adejobi theatre, the popular Yoruba travelling theatre, we started with improvisation. But when I came to the University of Ife Theatre, I started acting in plays that are written, that are published. In fact, we used to premiere Rotimi’s plays before being published. So also with Soyinka, we would perform, we would do the premiere of his play. And then we would notice where he needed to do some amendments before he went to press. And that is why any playwright who has the opportunity of working with a professional theatre has an edge above those who do not have the opportunity. It is not as the plays are written that they are published. It is after we have performed it several times that he goes to press. So I enjoyed that. It was an experience. And all the experience I garnered in that process made it easier for me when I had the opportunity of studying dramatics arts. All what I had known, all what I had known in practice, I started studying the theory. And it makes it very easier for me.
So one can safely say that you started your theatre art with, stage performance and all of that?
Yes, stage performance. At that time, when I started with the Oyin Adejobi Theatre, it was like an opera. We sing or chant our lines. We didn’t say our lines like it obtains nowadays.
Our most popular play at that time was Orogun Adedigba written by Baba Oyinade Jobi. The lead role, after the opening lead, we sing the opening lead, a kind of narration of what the play is about. And then the lead role will come on stage and introduce himself. Oyin Adejobi singing and the wife will come on stage and kneel down and greet her husband, that was the system. The friends will come. They will sing or chant. But when we started performing for WNTV, WNBS, it was the director then, the late Sam Adegbe of WNTV, WNBS, who said we have to change. He came to watch our play because before the production on television at Ibadan. At that time I’m talking about, there was no recording facility. The director will come to watch our play and then we will pack ourselves in our bus, in our bole kaja. I want to remember the name we used to call it. And then we go to Ibadan and perform live. We will be performing and people at home will be seeing it. No facility for recording. So he came to watch our play and we started. We first gave him the opening glee. We danced. We danced what we used to call kabare dance. We sang. We danced. At the end, Adegbe came on stage and took his lines with the song that I rendered just now. And then it wowed everybody. And then the man said, alright, when are you going to start the play? Oga said, it is the play that we have been doing after the opening. Can’t you see the characters coming in and singing? He said, well, for television we are not going to accept that from you. What you are doing is opera. We want to do real drama. And that was why we said we should limit singing to opening glee and closing glee. The rest we have to say it. It lessens the responsibility, the duty of the leader. We call our leader composer because he composes. We didn’t call him playwright. We called him composer. So his burden was lessened because he didn’t have to compose all the lines into song. He just gave us the synopsis and we had to manufacture our own lines.
Being that we have been doing before, we didn’t find it difficult. Baba Wande and Oga’s wife and the rest of it, we do fine productions. All over the place, we toured Ekiti, Kwara, we even went as far as the eastern states, Nsukka, Port Harcourt and the north, we went as far as Kano, producing and performing our plays.
And after nine years, I thought I should move forward and I came and Uncle Gboyega brought me to Ife to join the University of Ife Theatre, where we didn’t have to do Opera. If we want to do opera, we will do opera, but the rest of it, we have to memorise our lines from scripted plays. And my first experience was my role as Odewale in The Gods Are Not to Blame. So I played Odewale in The Gods Are Not to Blame more than any other person in this world. From 1974 to the year 2000, when Ola Rotimi died, I was playing the role.
And so many other performances, dance drama, a kind of opera mixed with dance drama, or Obaluaye, and the rest of it. Then, when the opportunity came, Soyinka took us to America in 1980. Soyinka took us to America in 1980 to do the Coast In Quest. There was this Black Theatre Arts Festival and Soyinka was to direct the Coast In Quest. And they took us to America. We were in America. I was in America for the first time in 1980.
And we did a performance at Lincoln Centre. At Lincoln Centre, there are 11 theatres where performances can go on simultaneously without one disturbing the other. Very large place. So I had another opportunity of going to perform in America with Soyinka’s sister, Professor Folabo Ajayi. She took us with a dance drama to America. That was in 1982. And that was how we went on until when the opportunity to study theatre arts came and I became a member of the academic staff.
Promise Babatunde
