Liberian Girl is about a 14-year-old called Martha set during the second Liberian
civil war (1999 – 2003) which brought Charles Taylor to power. To escape
advancing rebels Martha and her grandma Mammie Esther flee into the bushes but
are captured by members of the Small Boy’s Unit, a feeder arm of child soldiers.
Among their captors are Double Trouble (Michael Ajao) and Killer (Valentine
Olukoga). Mammie Esther makes an unwise comment about the depravity of the
pair and as punishment is dragged away by Killer. He returns alone and
encourages a distraught Martha to forget her grandma as she is conscripted by the
pair, they themselves minions further down in the food chain and only too happy
to exercise what power they have on the weak and defenceless.
Playwright Ms Atuona has gone to the effort of giving Double Trouble and Killer
both layers of character so that they are not just one homogenous band of drug
addled and happy trigger rebels, but young boys who – themselves conscripts – are
like other boys their age who exude bravery and “manliness” but really just want
the approval of their commander, Frazer James, and most importantly Charles
Taylor affectionately referred to as “Papay”. Of the two, Killer is the most
ambitious about rising through the ranks and is prepared to kill and maim to do
so. Along with money, cars and women promised upon victory, an eventual
meeting with Taylor is all he is looking forward to.
It is made clear that Martha is a girl who, to protect her from rape, is
masquerading as a boy. She is nicknamed Frisky by the pair as they welcome her
with glee and terror. To further inculcate her Killer, after raping a newer captor,
coerces Frisky into doing the same. The pair cheer her on but somehow do not
notice that Frisky is missing male genitals (in an earlier scene Killer playfully
assaults Martha by grabbing her groin but, incredibly, does not detect that
something is wrong). Crucially, we see Martha, a scared teenage girl, morph intoFrisky, a child soldier who proves herself enough to her captors to be accepted as
an equal.
I can accept that Ms Atuoma is most interested in showing to her audience the
brutality of war, and she succeeded in eliciting true empathy from some of the
audience in the performance I watched. The necessity for artifice required to
stage a play can rightfully override depictions of reality but it has to be done with
a deft hand. Audiences wilfully suspend disbelief but will not assume credulity no
matter how plausible the situation.
Ms Atuona has Nigerian parents and was raised in Peckham which is fast losing its
status as a Nigerian stronghold, so it is understandable that the rhythms of West
African speech with which she is most familiar are Nigerian English. She may well
have researched Liberian pidgin and could convincingly write full sentences in it,
but to produce an entire play requires deeper levels of immersion or an uncanny
ability for mimicry, the fruits of which are not always on display here.
There are overlaps in the Pidgin English spoken across countries in West Africa.
The differences are notable (accents, syntax) but a speaker from Sierra Leone
could very well understand another from Liberia or Nigeria. If you were to draw a
Venn Diagram of the language used in the play – Nigerian pidgin in set A, Liberian
pidgin in set B – the intersection will choke with similarities. Next will be set A
with recognisable Nigerianisms like ending sentences with the suffix “-o” with
fewer Liberianisms in set B.
There is also the jumble of accents. Cecilia Noble’s Mammie Esther, otherwise
world weary as if suffering is her life’s work, occasionally lapses into her English
accent. Valentine Olukoga’s Killer has an accent that is steadily Nigerian auguring
better with Nigerian pidgin of the text than with the Liberian of the character as
intended. James Fraser appears to be relishing his role as the unit commander,
barking instructions and whipping his soldiers into a killing frenzy. For a
newcomer in her first professional stage debut, Juma Sharkan is a revelation. Her
progression (retrogression perhaps?) from Martha to Frisky is played with touchingeloquence. Hers is a child who is no stranger to the debilitating effects of war but
young enough to still have the transparent innocence of youth.
590×494.fitandcropAudiences are warned on entering the theatre that they will
be standing for the duration of the performance and may be moved around by the
cast. And this they did, yelling at us to make room for set changes. It is a
refreshing gimmick that invites audience involvement but not input. What is a
little discomfort anyway when there is all this genocide and rape happening right
before you?
Detractors might see Liberian Girl as yet another tale of Africa’s woes. It is a
subject matter that is sure to bring the writer some recognition, whether by the
Alfred Fagon award (which Ms Atuona won in 2013) or the Caine Prize for African
writing, whose winning stories have often been ostensibly about the continent’s
ills. But overexposure to a subject matter like this does nothing to diminish its
prevalence. These problems still persist and if the continent’s writers do not
document it, who will? Since these challenges will not just vanish and ought to be
recorded it is up to us as consumers of such works to increase our threshold.
Ms Atuona’s willingness to tackle such a serious issue is commendable. It is a
confident debut that is matched by a fluid production by director Matthew
Dunstner making for a very promising start of the year for the Royal Court.