In Inua Ellam’s “The Half God of Rainfall”, Zeus, the thunder-god of Greek
mythology loses a bet to Sango, his equivalent among Yoruba deities and proceeds
to violate Modupe, a mortal who bore a child called Demi described by the poet &
playwright thus: “Half Nigerian mortal. Half Grecian God. Half-child of Zeus.
Half-lord of river waters”. Demi grows into a celebrated basketball player and
nurses an ambition to avenge the crime against his mother. The recombination of
deities may initially seem sensational but not for too long. Once primed, the
readers imagination is engined by the revenge plot and fanfare rise to fame of its
hero Demi all of which is vividly rendered by Ellam’s powers of memorable
description.
Currently a stage play until May 17th at Kiln Theatre in London, “The Half God of
Rainfall” is also available as an epic poem in verse, published by Fourth Estate
(UK). The constellation of Greek and Yoruba gods in Ellam’s story have been
whittled into a two-hander staring Kwami Odoom as Demi and Rakie Ayola as
Modupe, his wronged mother. Odoom is mixed race and of very light complexion,
a simplified way to suggest his mytho-genetic make-up while Ayola has a graceful
athletic built that may be coincidental to the plot but makes for a strong physical
presence on stage.
If in the opening pages the reader is asked to suspend too much belief, by page
40 a sentence such as “Sàngó owes Zeus. Fail, and Sàngó’s thunderbolts will be
your nightmares” does not creak in the ear. It is in fact a complete flush and this
is true of the chunky passages where false notes are, otherwise, easily detected:
“They launched off the Plain of Thessaly in Greece, off the Meteora
monasteries. Zeus galloped into speed, Sàngó’s bolt behind, beneath, a crease in
the night skies shedding storm clouds, leaving Europe, crossing the
Mediterranean. Zeus dipped, swerved into Sàngó’s path who to avoid the clashup, turned sharply and smashed into the Acacus herd of stout mountains in
western Libya. Zeus flashed forward but Sàngó’s anger powered him ahead over
Niger, where Zeus blinded him with a blast of light and in the chaos cheated,
strapped Hermes – winged Greek messenger God, to his chariot’s shaft”.
The gods’ and their machinations – in the text – are absorbed into the story’s
narration and moral universe so well that detecting incongruities begin to
resemble the petty pickings of a distrusting reader or audience member. One
example encapsulates this problem when ex-NBA player and Nigerian-American,
Hakeem Olajuwon, is offered gin by Demi of which the avowed Muslim “took a
large last gulp and shunned Demi’s offer of more”.
The problem is Olajuwon was a practicing muslim as a player and courted
controversy with his team and adulation from fans when he insisted on fasting
through crucial games. Will this plot detail sound a false note to any reader or
audience member in possession of this fact? Most likely. Does this matter in an
epic poem or play about errant gods and vengeful humans? Hardly. Such instances
ought to make a certain reader/audience more alert to what detail should or
should not be scrutinised.
Ellams is a gifted poet and has thankfully chosen not to dazzle with language for
its sake. Service to the story is prioritised and for this reason, the shine of his
imagery often sparkle. And so, momentary enjoyment does not scupper narrative
momentum as in his depiction of a starry night sky as “jewelling darkness”.
Occasionally, Ellam’s temptation for lofty thinking recalls the grandness of Ben
Okri’s mystic poems such as this nugget found on the same page: “We hardly
exist! We’re hope. Nothing else. Yet, our deepest fear is not our insignificance
but that we’re free, immeasurable”.
The architecture and plot progression of “The Half God of Rainfall” would
resemble that of Hollywood blockbusters, not least superhero movies, or any film
traditions that steadily build from inciting incident to big crescendo and a coda
for balance. And yes, Ellams is 34 years old and is an enthusiast for basketball and
comics. He is also a successful poet and playwright, a field where game rules fordramatic theory were set by Aristotle in “Poetics”, which Wikipedia will tell you,
was written as far back as 335BC.