| The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Company | Bombay Republic |
| Date of premiere | June 7, 2018 |
| Final show | July 21, 2018 |
| Location | Arcola Theatre |
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is a stage play by Rotimi Babatunde based on a 2010 novel of the same name by Nigerian poet, Lola Shoneyin. It was directed by Femi Elufowoju Jr and showed at the Arcola Theatre in London. [1] [2]
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives explores the themes of polygamy, rivalry, sexuality, mental health and the struggles of African women as laid out in the novel The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives . The story follows the titular Baba Segi, his four wives, seven children and a secret as it unravels. Baba Segi is an unlettered but rich patriarch of a large household. There is an ongoing supremacy battle amongst the wives which Baba Segi is not aware of. He leaves his wives to their devices and marries Bolanle, a young university graduate whose naïveté leads to her struggles in Baba Segi's household. Bolanle's naïveté also leads to her unwitting unraveling of the untold secrets of Baba Segi's wives. [1] [2]
Choreography - Kemi Durosinmi and Uche Onah
Costume - Shola Ajayi
Henry Hitchings of the Evening Standard rated the show 4/5. In his review, he said, "This is an exuberantly entertaining show. Although the humour is often broad, there’s an unflinching seriousness in its depiction of violent abuse (and worse). Tellingly, too, it portrays a society that may notionally be overseen by men yet is actually run by women, and the line that lives in the memory is Iya Segi’s withering observation that “men are like yam — you cut them how you like”." [1] It was also rated 4/5 by Whats On Stage and Londonist. [4] [5]
Femi Elufowoju Jr won an Off-West End Award for Best Director for the play. [6]
Prior to the London production, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives also showed in Abekouta featuring Adesua Etomi and Joke Silva. [7]
Netflix is set to release a series of the same name produced by Mo Abudu. Lola Shoneyin disclosed that she would like the movie to be shot in Ibadan. [8]
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
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Lola Shoneyin is a Nigerian poet and author who launched her debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, in the UK in May 2010. Shoneyin has forged a reputation as an adventurous, humorous and outspoken poet, having published three volumes of poetry. Her writing delves into themes related to female sexuality and the difficulties of domestic life in Africa. In April 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Lola won the PEN Award in America as well as the Ken Saro-Wiwa Award for prose in Nigeria. She was also on the list for the Orange Prize in the UK for her debut novel, The Secret of Baba Segi's Wives, in 2010. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria, where she runs the annual Aké Arts and Book Festival. In 2017, she was named African Literary Person of the Year by Brittle Paper.
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The Aké Arts and Book Festival is a literary and artistic event held annually in Nigeria. It was founded in 2013 by Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian writer and poet, in Abeokuta. It features new and established writers from across the world, and its primary focus has been to promote, develop, and celebrate the creativity of African writers, poets, and artists. The Aké Arts and Book Festival has been described as the African continent's biggest annual gathering of literary writers, editors, critics, and readers. The festival has an official website and a dedicated magazine, known as the Aké Review.
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Oluwafemi Elufowoju Jr. is a British-born, Nigerian-raised performance practitioner working across the creative industries. After Alton Kumalo, founder of Temba Theatre Company, Elufowoju is the second theatre director of African descent to establish a national touring company in the UK. Elufowoju's stage work has been seen across most key flagship production houses in the UK, and has collaborated extensively with notable creatives within the film, television and radio sectors.
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The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is the title of the 2010 debut novel by the Nigerian poet Lola Shoneyin. The novel was longlisted for the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction in 2011. It won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2011 and the ANA Ken Saro-Wiwa Prose Prize in the same year. It was short listed for the NLNG Nigeria prize for literature in 2012 and was listed in the top ten novels about Nigeria by The Observer newspaper in 2014. It has been translated into several languages including Arabic and has been adapted for the stage and screen.
Uche Chika Elumelu is a Nigerian actress.
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives may refer to: