By JAPHET ALAKAM

Playwright, author, activist and lawyer, Mr. Fred Agbeyegbe, will turn 80 on Wednesday, and from July 19 to 25, 2015, a lot of activities has been lined up in a carnival like celebration in his honour featuring a conference, presentation of Fred Agbeyegbe’s plays, and a host of other events at National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos.

Uncle Fred as he is fondly called is a dominant narrative of Nigeria’s theatre development through the Ajo Productions 1983 to 1986, and in recognition of his contributions to the theatre world, the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) gave him an award as the Grand Living Legend of Nigerian theatre.
As part of the celebrations, in this chat with Sunday Arts, Uncle Fred bares his mind on some of the contentious issues about the state of theatre, the National theatre and others. Excerpts.

Congratulations for joining the club of 80, how do you feel?

I thank God for keeping me this long and I owe him all the gratitude that is possible from father to son, from created to creator.

As a playwright you have written many plays that talked about some of the things that are happening in the society and you  still play a dominant role in the theatre world. So looking at theatre practice then and now, what can you say about it?

Fred Agbeyegbe

Well, I just went to the national theatre and in the discussions there all the references were to what happened in 1983 to 1986 which I was involved and people have the impression that theatre had died before I came on the scene in 1983 and it lived for 4 vigorous years ending up with a theatre festival which  I initiated, sponsored and acted and that since then theatre is going back to what it was before I came in 1983 , so they are happy to hear that there is a carnival in my honour and the whole theatre world are coming up again to celebrate one of their own and they all expressed the hope that now that this is happening it would be the beginning of another revival in the theatre world.

The moral of that story is that theatre as at the time I took it up to 1986 between then and now is not exactly the same but of course there has been a significant event that Nollywood has come into the show and theatre is beginning to be redefined in terms of who are the ones known out there by the viewing public. Of course, to compare theatre and film which is what Nollywood represents in any case  is an error because they are walls apart, in Nollywood you can have an amateur today that becomes an expert in the next 24 hours because there is a camera and the guy does his thing, and  you can shoot the same thing a hundred times if he likes and  pick which one fits in and you have something for the public to view.

In theatre there is a lot of expertise that is required and  a lot of acting that is necessary very much unlike what goes on in the Nollywood so the question now is whether theatre would remain in the doldrums or pick up again and I have a feeling that it would. I also want to feel that especially after my visit to the national theatre today, very soon we would see a vibrant theatre culture in Nigeria again.

On the national theatre, there have been a lot of talks about the theatre, many people are not comfortable with the federal government stance on it, especially on the talk about concession or sell. What is your take on what’s happening in the national theatre?

Well, from my visit to the theatre and my discussions with the management of the theatre, there seems to be a misconception of what’s going on in that place. From the lackadaisical days of those who were just there and not paying too much attention to what it represents before I came on the scene till now that we are talking about before the new management  came in and decided to work in accordance with the original plan. If you know the story on that side, you’d see that the idea that theatre is dead or is going one way or the other because of the people in there is a total misconception of what’s happening.

There has been a grand plan for this theatre many many years ago, right from the time it was set up and it was meant to be pursuing the policies that were enunciated in the white paper, which you call government proposals at the time. It is just that things stopped and did not develop any further. What the new management is doing is to want to take it to where it is originally meant to be and the paper they are working with is not a new thing at all. Something that talks about setting up that place with hotels and so many things that in fact will support theatre but which had not been put into practice.

So I must say when I did an event for Ayo Opadokun when he was 67, a few years back there was a paper written by Ben Tomoloju, who is a theatre activist on the national theatre, and because of this idea that we all had about the place I gave it vent in the program that I put out at that time on the brochure that I published for Ayo Opadokun titled National theatres bizarre and the legislative intervention.

I must say what is contained in that article and what I was told and saw today are completely different things. The interpretation by the outside world is understandable because they are talking in terms of what they have seen all over the years but they don’t know about this initial plan for the place which is so many years old and according to what the manager told me when he came that document was in the dustbin and he picked it up and he took it to the legislative council and got approval that they should continue on those lights because they believe that’s what’s best for the theatre.

Now of course when politicians handle things, they put in their own spice and the idea was that they were ganging up to make sure that theatre never goes on again the way it should have gone. But as I speak, it is the conviction that the people there are working to a set plan which has not just been decided but you can blame them  of course, for not informing the public about what they are doing, they just set about doing what they are employed and paid to do without caring about public reaction to what is being said about them, so that’s all I know about them.

At 80, you are still agile and energetic. What is the secret?

It is God because I wouldn’t know. The ways of the Lord are difficult to understand because he moves in mysterious ways. There are those of us who are 90years that are still very strong and there are people who are 40years that cannot even move better. I don’t know but I don’t think I do anything out of the ordinary, what I know is that I enjoy work, I enjoy reading and writing. Once those three things are present, it does not matter whether I eat or not. And as an Itsekiri man, I am a fish monger. That is one thing that I eat that is significant which maybe other people are not eating. I am grateful to God all the same.