When Abuja saw ‘Eloise under the almond tree’

The twentieth century comedy is by one of Spain’s greatly admired playwrights, Enrique Jardiel Poncela. At the Lagos Room of the hotel, theatre enthusiasts were amused and entertained by the group which has over the years educated and given audiences through well delivered dialogues and actions, insights into Spain’s cultural heritage across centuries and decades. […]

The twentieth century comedy is by one of Spain’s greatly admired playwrights, Enrique Jardiel Poncela.

At the Lagos Room of the hotel, theatre enthusiasts were amused and entertained by the group which has over the years educated and given audiences through well delivered dialogues and actions, insights into Spain’s cultural heritage across centuries and decades.

The 1941 piece marked the beginning of the seventh edition of the Spanish cultural week in Nigeria. Featuring graduates and current students of theatre arts, the piece examines the intertwined and dysfunctional lives of two families the Ojedas and the Birones. On the surface it appears they are all mentally imbalanced but at certain points they all appear to be perfectly normal.  This is point where it all gets con fusing: when are they normal and when are they abnormal?

The Briones used to live on the Ojedas farm. One day Micaela (Song Hanatu) who has had mental problems from childhood kills her sister-in-law Eloise who was married to her younger brother, Edgarfdo (Yusuf Dauda) in the belief that she was having an affair with Federico Ojeda who later committed suicide leaving a note for his son Fernando (Seyi Lovingkindness Babalola) to find out the circumstances surrounding his death.

Fernando  is left in the custody of Ezekiel who is obsessed with being a scientist trying to find a cure for pellagra an ailment that infects cats. Clotilde (Jumoke Olatubosun) who is loved b y both Ezekiel (James Akolo Anthony) and Edgardo, finds a diary detailing the experiments but believes that he is experimenting with humans, especially women.

Mariana Briones (Julia Joy Okeshola) finds herself in love with Fernando. One rainy night they all end up at the Ojeeda’s farm where family secrets are laid bare and they are all made to confront this pat without which they cannot move forward as friends or family.

A question posed by this is what is the dividing line between sanity and insanity, as in every society this line is believed to be very thin and hardly noticed.

Director of the play Patrick-Jude Oteh said an enduring lesson from the play is the concept of forgiveness.  “We must forgive to cure all our obsessions. We must forgive to move forward either as individuals or as a bigger national unit. Each of us in those moments of insanity we must find the level from which it is comfortable to operate and if we are not careful, we end up creating a society no better than a huge mental asylum.

Over the past five years, the group has built a repertory of Spanish plays which include Federico Garcia Lorca’s ‘Yerma’ (2008), Lope De Vega’s ‘Fuenteovejuna’ (2009), Calederon De la Barca’s ‘LA vida es sueno (Life is a dream, 2010) and Miguel Mihur’s ‘Sublime Decision’ (2011).

According to the founding artistic director of the group, Oteh, “this has been one of the very few enduring successes of cultural exchanges building a repertory of Spanish plays being brought to life by Nigerian cast and crew.” The plays, Oteh said, undoubtedly share a deep resonance with Nigerian experiences and has been enriching.