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| Fela Kuti, a Glasgow nightclub and the drama of the ladies’ loos | Fela Kuti, a Glasgow nightclub and the drama of the ladies’ loos |
| (7 days later) | |
| In a nightclub toilet not dissimilar to the well-bleached stalls of Glasgow’s Shimmy Club, a vexing stand-off unfolds over bog roll. Women waltz in and out of the cubicles, adjusting bra straps and appraising one another in the mirrors with the unselfconscious abandon that only exists in all-female environments. It’s a familiar setting – the sweaty and occasionally stinky environs of the women’s loo – and one where Adura Onashile has set her new play, Expensive Shit. | In a nightclub toilet not dissimilar to the well-bleached stalls of Glasgow’s Shimmy Club, a vexing stand-off unfolds over bog roll. Women waltz in and out of the cubicles, adjusting bra straps and appraising one another in the mirrors with the unselfconscious abandon that only exists in all-female environments. It’s a familiar setting – the sweaty and occasionally stinky environs of the women’s loo – and one where Adura Onashile has set her new play, Expensive Shit. |
| The story of former dancer and current toilet-roll tyrant, Tolu, played by Sabina Cameron, switches the audience between modern-day Scotland and Fela Kuti’s Shrine club in Lagos. This is London-born, Glasgow-based Onashile’s first attempt at directing her own work – “you permanently feel something’s about to go wrong” – and the possibilities afforded by the specific, lavatorial setting are key to the production. It joins a highly select number of plays set in women’s toilets, including When Women Wee by Rachel Hirons, adapted for screen in 2013, starring Sheridan Smith. | The story of former dancer and current toilet-roll tyrant, Tolu, played by Sabina Cameron, switches the audience between modern-day Scotland and Fela Kuti’s Shrine club in Lagos. This is London-born, Glasgow-based Onashile’s first attempt at directing her own work – “you permanently feel something’s about to go wrong” – and the possibilities afforded by the specific, lavatorial setting are key to the production. It joins a highly select number of plays set in women’s toilets, including When Women Wee by Rachel Hirons, adapted for screen in 2013, starring Sheridan Smith. |
| “There’s the difference between the persona you put on for the dancefloor and elsewhere,” Onashile explains. “The toilets are the one place where you’re not watched, except, in this one, there’s a toilet attendant and so you are.” | “There’s the difference between the persona you put on for the dancefloor and elsewhere,” Onashile explains. “The toilets are the one place where you’re not watched, except, in this one, there’s a toilet attendant and so you are.” |
| She says the work was partly prompted by her own tricky relationship with the mainly Nigerian toilet attendants she encountered in the UK (Onashile lived in Nigeria for eight years as a child). “On the one hand, I hated what I saw as exploitation, as they’re not really paid, and on the other, there was this social discomfort that I’m not proud of, about: ‘We’re almost the same …’ I want to explore anything I feel icky about,” she says. | She says the work was partly prompted by her own tricky relationship with the mainly Nigerian toilet attendants she encountered in the UK (Onashile lived in Nigeria for eight years as a child). “On the one hand, I hated what I saw as exploitation, as they’re not really paid, and on the other, there was this social discomfort that I’m not proud of, about: ‘We’re almost the same …’ I want to explore anything I feel icky about,” she says. |
| The scenes based at the Shrine club in Lagos explore a different flavour of exploitation: “We’re looking at four women who dream of being in Fela’s band. They use the toilet as the place where they practise their numbers before they do them full-out on the dancefloor, and the dream is that they will get picked up for the band. So in this respect, the toilets have become a place of fantasy and possibility, in a way that the Glasgow toilet is not … or is it?” She laughs, leaving the denouement unspoiled. | The scenes based at the Shrine club in Lagos explore a different flavour of exploitation: “We’re looking at four women who dream of being in Fela’s band. They use the toilet as the place where they practise their numbers before they do them full-out on the dancefloor, and the dream is that they will get picked up for the band. So in this respect, the toilets have become a place of fantasy and possibility, in a way that the Glasgow toilet is not … or is it?” She laughs, leaving the denouement unspoiled. |
| But the play also becomes an exploration of Fela’s music from a female point of view. “I love his music, but I have a difficult relationship with how women were portrayed in his politics, and yet they were such a big part of his aesthetic. I think half the reason I grew up loving it was because of the dancers and the singers, but they were in the background and I wanted to bring them to the foreground.” | But the play also becomes an exploration of Fela’s music from a female point of view. “I love his music, but I have a difficult relationship with how women were portrayed in his politics, and yet they were such a big part of his aesthetic. I think half the reason I grew up loving it was because of the dancers and the singers, but they were in the background and I wanted to bring them to the foreground.” |
| While the dramatic setting allows Onashile to isolate the way that women regard themselves and each other, the impact of the male gaze is never far away. “We’ve discussed it in the cast: why do women go to the toilet in pairs? One woman said: ‘Because you don’t want to be cornered.’ So we’ve always got that sense of being watched, judged, ridiculed.” That gaze can, of course, be a threatening one: “When are we not going to worry about sending texts when we come back from a night out so everybody knows we’re safe? Men don’t do that. Women just take it for granted … so somewhere the world must feel unsafe to us on a basic level.” | While the dramatic setting allows Onashile to isolate the way that women regard themselves and each other, the impact of the male gaze is never far away. “We’ve discussed it in the cast: why do women go to the toilet in pairs? One woman said: ‘Because you don’t want to be cornered.’ So we’ve always got that sense of being watched, judged, ridiculed.” That gaze can, of course, be a threatening one: “When are we not going to worry about sending texts when we come back from a night out so everybody knows we’re safe? Men don’t do that. Women just take it for granted … so somewhere the world must feel unsafe to us on a basic level.” |
| In his music, Fela was blatant about his misogyny, she says. But here the parallels between Lagos and Glasgow are at their most illuminating: “We look at Africa and say: ‘You guys are primitive and gender relations are archaic,’ but here there’s a very obvious feminism, and yet things are still happening that are baffling to me. How far have we really come?” | In his music, Fela was blatant about his misogyny, she says. But here the parallels between Lagos and Glasgow are at their most illuminating: “We look at Africa and say: ‘You guys are primitive and gender relations are archaic,’ but here there’s a very obvious feminism, and yet things are still happening that are baffling to me. How far have we really come?” |
| Onashile decamped to Glasgow six years ago, after arriving in the city to preview Cora Bissett’s award-winning play about sex trafficking, Roadkill. Since then, she has toured internationally with her hugely successful one-woman show HeLa, which tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, the African-American woman whose unique cancer cells were cultured without her consent and had a global impact on medical research. | Onashile decamped to Glasgow six years ago, after arriving in the city to preview Cora Bissett’s award-winning play about sex trafficking, Roadkill. Since then, she has toured internationally with her hugely successful one-woman show HeLa, which tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, the African-American woman whose unique cancer cells were cultured without her consent and had a global impact on medical research. |
| Of the move north, she says: “It’s been amazing for my work, the nurturing, support and belief. It’s home. And I find it fascinating because Scotland has a very interesting relationship with Nigeria.” (Scotland has only lately begun to confront its own part in the African slave trade, for too long conveniently passed off as an English malignancy.) “I grew up in London and Nigeria and nobody really mentioned Scotland, so it’s a revelation being there.”“I grew up in London and Nigeria and nobody really mentioned Scotland, so it’s a revelation being there.” That said, Onashile struggled to find black Scottish actors to play her roles and, after holding two auditions north of the border, found only one suitable Scots-born artist, Jamie Leary. Indeed, she says her production is the first all-female, all-black cast in a Scottish production at the Edinburgh festival. | Of the move north, she says: “It’s been amazing for my work, the nurturing, support and belief. It’s home. And I find it fascinating because Scotland has a very interesting relationship with Nigeria.” (Scotland has only lately begun to confront its own part in the African slave trade, for too long conveniently passed off as an English malignancy.) “I grew up in London and Nigeria and nobody really mentioned Scotland, so it’s a revelation being there.”“I grew up in London and Nigeria and nobody really mentioned Scotland, so it’s a revelation being there.” That said, Onashile struggled to find black Scottish actors to play her roles and, after holding two auditions north of the border, found only one suitable Scots-born artist, Jamie Leary. Indeed, she says her production is the first all-female, all-black cast in a Scottish production at the Edinburgh festival. |
| “Even in the time I’ve been here, the population of Glasgow has definitely become more diverse. That set-up, that you don’t see many people of colour on theatre stages in Scotland, would make you think that maybe there’s a strange kind of vibe: there isn’t. There’s an openness to making mistakes and trying things out that for me is gold dust.” | “Even in the time I’ve been here, the population of Glasgow has definitely become more diverse. That set-up, that you don’t see many people of colour on theatre stages in Scotland, would make you think that maybe there’s a strange kind of vibe: there isn’t. There’s an openness to making mistakes and trying things out that for me is gold dust.” |
| Expensive Shit is at the Traverse, Edinburgh, until 28 August and will run at London’s Southbank Centre from 1 to 4 September as part of Africa Utopia | Expensive Shit is at the Traverse, Edinburgh, until 28 August and will run at London’s Southbank Centre from 1 to 4 September as part of Africa Utopia |
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