Obaaberima: sashaying towards the future
30 Nov 2018

Production photos by Jeremy Mimnagh, publicity photo by Tanja Tiziana

by Drew Rowsome -

Obaaberima is a cleverly constructed play anchored by an extraordinary performance by Tawiah Ben M'Carthy (Black Boys). The author M'Carthy has created a specific individual story that radiates outwards to embrace the universal. The actor M'Carthy conjures the dozen or so characters required to tell the story in a way that is breathtaking but never showy. It is only after, during Obaaberima one is too raptly involved, that one marvels at the skill and passion it takes to harness so many ideas and distinct personas in order to present them vividly and indelibly.

I'm still puzzling over how M'Carthy seemed to make his actual facial structure morph. Powerful theatrical magic.

Obaaberima begins in a prison and with our first introduction to the sassy and defiant Agyeman. From there the play travels back in time and, in a chronological biographical format, we find out how Agyeman came to find who they are. Every time a segment has a familiar ring - a young boy trying on his mother's dress and high heels, a tentative gay romance, life on the downlow - it is spun into an unexpected direction and/or rendered fresh by M'Carthy's expressive eyes, limber physicality and vocal depth.

There are scenes punctuated with shrewdly placed laughs, scenes that make the audience squirm with either recognition or eroticism or both, and when the final pieces of the double parallel structure snap into place, a triumphant catharsis. To reveal any of the twists would be criminal as the discovery is part of the delight, but suffice to say that whatever one expects, Obaaberima delivers more. And on its own terms. M'Carthy is demonstrating that gender, sexuality and race are not either or, it is a scale that one has to slide on before deciding where one belongs. In a meta-theatrical way he emphasizes his point by donning and discarding so many characters of all genders, sexualities and races. And refusing to let the final moment become fixed in anything but a sashay towards what comes next.

M'Carthy may be, aside from musical accompanist/scene partner Kobena Aquaa-Harrison, alone on stage, but he has much subtle assistance from the lighting by Michelle Ramsay (No Strings (Attached), Gertrude and Alice) and director Evalyn Parry (Gertrude and Alice, Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools) who have borrowed from the aesthetic of Da Da Kamera. The lights, sounds and M'Carthy flow in perfect unison or counterpoint to create enough support for an illusion to be created, a reality to be painted, or a transition to become seamless. All is deceptively simple and minimal, the effect is maximal and emotional pointed.

Obaaberima is also notable for its commitment to honesty. While not strictly autobiographical, M'Carthy explores the character's relationships to sexuality, gender and race fearlessly, mixing the comic bravado of a drag queen with the depth of a confessional and the macho facade of a stud, then adding fear, confusion and anger as needed. There is an undercurrent of joy that animates M'Carthy's performance, not a wink or a strut, but an acknowledgement that he is sharing something and it gives him great pleasure. Obaaberima despite not shying from the grim and painful, gives the audience great pleasure as well.