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On December 25, 2023, Kester Abiodun Abe will be bowing out of the National Theatre, where he has been a staff since May 1989. On that day, he will be 60 years, the mandatory age for retirement.
A widely travelled artiste, Abe, a Fellow of Theatre Arts, and a member of an array of professional bodies both at home and abroad, says, “I have no regrets working here for this long.”
During his youth service, he was posted to Lagos to teach. After his NYSC, he got a national award from the then Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida with an automatic employment at the National Theatre. That was how he started working there, and today, he is a director in charge of production and events.
“Though people who saw the kind of opportunity I had when I was given the chance to choose from anywhere in Nigeria, including the armed forces wouldn’t feel so,” he explains. He was interested in working at the National Theatre, which he considered the laboratory of performative art.
“I didn’t go to the university to read theatre arts by accident. I went there to read my desired course of study. So, why should I now tap into an opportunity that may boomerang,” he says.
Though some people advised against working here because it was a ‘desert’, “I stuck my gun because I knew every desert has an oasis, and God will deposit me in the oasis of that desert.” He says, however, it is not all bed of roses, as there were moments of disappoinment such as, when his junior was promoted above him.
“People wanted me to petition the management, but I didn’t,” he says. “There is also when someone who was not supposed to be head was appointed acting head. Theatre suffered under him, because he never cared.”
TRAINED at the University of Ilorin and Ibadan for his first and second degrees in Theatre Arts respectively, as a technical director, he has handled well over 50 quality productions, which include, Wole Soyinka’s Death and the Kings Horseman, Lion and the Jewel, Bacchae of Euripides, Femi Osofisan’s Midnight Hotel, Morountodun, Twingle-Twangle, Once Upon Four Robbers, Ola Rotimi’s Kurunmi, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again and Ahmed Yerima’s The Sisters, The Portrait and Trials of Oba Ovonramwen.
HOW did he encounter technical theatre?
He laughs. He takes in a little air and breathes out, “I just went there to study performing arts, and then, all I knew about performing arts then was acting. But what had always made a difference to me was the backdrop. I did not know what it was made of. It was later I discovered that it was made of canvass. I had a rich background in Theatre right from my secondary school in Ekiti Parapo College, Ido-Ekiti.”
According to him, when he went to secondary school, all he knew basically was that acting is all there was to the theatre, but in the university, other areas of theatre arts became known to him.
“We started talking about theatre management, directing and other areas, and we knew that acting is just one of the areas,” Abe quips. “It was then I realised that there is an integral part of theatre that has to do with designs. And immediately, I fell for it because I already had strong footing in drawing. So, set designs caught my fancy and I went on with it.”
He continues, “right now, the art of theatre itself has changed. The world of theatre globally has become that of razzmatazz. So, both the artiste and the audience actually look forward to good visual on stage. It will interest you to know that an average audience, not only in Nigeria, but worldwide starts enjoying his money from the point of entry into the theatre. And what informs that? It is not the script by the playwright or the acting by the actor. It is not the work of the director either. It is simply the work of the scenographer.”
He says with aplomb, “it is the set that announces everything…It is through the make-up, the designs, the stage and all that, that you are ushered into the hall. The scenic experience gives the long-lasting impression in the eyes and minds of the audience. Today, aesthetics has become an integral part of the theatre that people want to go to the cinema to enjoy performances. As a matter of fact, the impression that designs create in the minds of people cannot be easily wished away.”
He confesses, “I went to a school where I struggled to light a play with three or four lanterns. Then, I came to the National Theatre in 1986 to watch the Fred Agbeyegbe sponsored Ajofest, I saw lights beaming from so many angles. I was so fascinated that I wanted to know who did it and how it was done. I was taking to the carpentry section of the National Theatre, where I revealed to the man I met that I was a student from the University of Ilorin in the performing arts department. I wanted to know how they were able to do it. That was where I first learnt how to drive home my first nail, the angle and how to position the hammer too. That experience inspired me and I felt I wanted to do it. Then, I told myself that one day I would come to the National Theatre to do stage design.”
Would he consider himself as a failed director, because every technical director is seen as one?
“I won’t see myself as a failed director. I believe that and very strongly too that every fantastic designer is a frustrated director, not a failed director. Any designer that is worth his salt is a frustrated director,” he says.
Abe believes that every beautiful designer is a frustrated director. In other words, before you can become successful as a stage designer, you must know how to read the mind of the stage director. He reveals, “this is because it is the stage designer himself who situates all the actions on the stage. And for you to be able to do this well, you have to work out the exits and entrances for the stage. You also design what the background is.”
Without sounding immodest, he insists: “The way theatre runs, there is limitation to what a designer ought to do. People want to suggest to him what to do. A playwright, for instance, picks his biro and starts writing stories. It takes him time to do that. But when it comes to me to do mine, he wants me to just jump into stage and design the work immediately.”
Abe believes that the work of a set designer should go beyond just complimenting the work of a director, noting that the work of the theatre is collaboration, so, everybody that collaborates in this endeavour called ‘theatre’ should be relevant.
“I believe that without the scenographer, the action cannot be situated. And I also realised too that the person that does the job as a scenographer has to read the script to situate the actions. At the end of the day, when everybody is through with the production, he is the one that remains on stage to strike the set. The scenographer is faced with so many limitations; the most terrible of such limitations is the one a scenographer has imposed on himself, which is by agreeing to play the second fiddle, which I will not subscribe to.”
IN 1993, when he designed the set of Langbodo, after the command performance at the University of Lagos, that was the show sponsored by NIB, now City Bank. The actors and the rest of them were introduced. People in the auditorium started shouting that they want to see the designer.
“They compelled them to call me out because they were impressed with what they saw. What I did on that set was to create a rocky landscape that appeared very real to the audience. I turned the ambience to a mountain, such that even when the NIB officials came to preview the show in Ife where we were rehearsing.”
Abe continues, “today, aesthetics has become an integral part of the theatre that people want to go to the cinema to enjoy performances. As a matter of fact, the impression that designs create in the minds of people cannot be easily wished away.” He says, “it is the set that announces everything. The scenic experience gives the long-lasting impression in the eyes and minds of the audience.”
According to him, “a designer, should be able to determine the nature of the stage with the kind of characters you have presented in the book. And I need to read the play; I need to study it properly to know the striking scenes that can make for a stage design or set. You need to read about the environment, whether it is summer or winter. A designer should come to terms with all these. There are certain things that give me quick inspiration when I read a script to get my stage design. First is space; when I see space, it gives me a lot of inspiration. Every congested space does not help my design. With space I am able to think. If I open my window and I see space, it helps me a lot.
He admits beautiful things help to situate the stage and “inspire the creativity in me a great deal.” He adds “aesthetics plays a great role in modern theatre design. That’s without killing the message itself. That, for me, is an appetiser and that too is the whole essence of stage designs and set and so on. It is to prepare the minds of the people as they enter the hall to watch the play.”
THE award winner, Abe has put into the business of theatre and film 35 fruitful years of post graduate life. As a film arts director, Abe has his stamp in some of the films that have made waves in the country. Credits include, but not limited to, Oduduwa, Sango, King Jaja of Opobo, Agbako, Blood On My Hands, Omen of Love and The Covenant Church.
As an arts administrator, Abe was acting Artistic Director of National Troupe of Nigeria (1990- 1991). As the National president, National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP), he coordinated the affairs of a professional body that has branches in all the states of the federation including, the Federal Capital Territory.
Abe was also the technical director of United States Information Service’s project, American Theatre Revue, in 1991. He was equally the technical director for OAU summit 1991, ECOWAS summit 1991, COJA 2003 (all the productions) National Sports Festival (Abuja 2004), Gateway Games, 2006 and Abuja Carnival.
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