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The Playboy of the Western World
Oct - Nov 2007: Produced by The Abbey Theatre
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Probably the most famous play of the Abbey Theatre’s repertoire, The Playboy of the Western World has constantly been revived and revisited.
This hilarious but uncompromising new version transposes the play from the West of Ireland to a pub in west Dublin and brings it bang up to date.
myspace/playboyanewversion
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The Dilemma of a Ghost
April 2007: Project Arts Centre
 The Cast of The Dilemma
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Gabriel, Merrina and Elvis impersonator in The Dilemma
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Upon graduation from an American University, Ato Quayson returns to his native wet
African country, Ghana with his brand new African American wife Eulalie, to begin a
new life among his people. In an endearingly funny and provocative way, The Dilemma
asks if Ato is now a stranger at home or at home among strangers.
In celebration of Ghana’s 50th independent anniversary and in our effort to further
widen our audience base and continue to contribute meaningfully to the discourse of
interculturalism in a modern day and increasingly diverse Ireland, Arambe presented,
for a week run, The Dilemma of A Ghost by Ama Ata Aidoo.
“This is an exhilarating evening of African drama”
Colin Murphy, Irish Independent
About The Play:
''As well as providing a fitting tribute to 50 years of independence in Ghana, the play
deftly captures the fault lines of tension and inter-generational conflict that can
accompany immigration of different kinds. The confusion, misunderstanding and cultural
barriers which arise in the drama are just as relevant to a village in rural Ghana as
to a housing estate in west Dublin.Immigration doesn't just entail the physical displacement of people;
it can also mean the displacement of identity and belonging; it can
be the cause of disconnection, loneliness and isolation.There is much in these themes,
which will chime with migrants or
foreign nationals who have made Ireland their home. But there is
also much of interest for Irish people seeking to understand our
new neighbours.'' - Carl O’Brien, The Irish Times Social Affairs Correspondent
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The Kings of the
Kilburn High Road
September 2006: T@36 - Teachers' Club Theatre
Actors: Yomi, Gabriel,
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Jimmy Murphy and the Cast
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To further achieve our aim of fostering cross-cultural understanding through
innovative reinterpretation of relevant Irish plays, Arambe produced
The Kings of The Kilburn High Road by Jimmy Murphy with an all African cast,
for a week-run during the 2006 Dublin Fringe Festival in September.
About the Play:
“In the mid-1970s a group of young men left their homes in the West of Ireland, took the boat out of Dublin Bay and sailed across the sea to England in the hope of making their fortunes and returning home. Several years later, only one, Jackie Flavin makes it home, but does so in a coffin. The Kings of the Kilburn High Road takes place on the day that the winners and losers of the group meet up to drink to Jackie Flavin’s memory and looks at their lives, lost dreams and their place in the new Ireland.”
- Jimmy Murphy
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Apparently, this play deals with the aspirations of Irish emigrants in London in the 70s. But Arambe produced it with an all-African cast to demonstrate that most migrants, whoever and wherever they are, will, more often than not, feel nostalgic and wish they did not have to leave their countries of origin in the first place. It was the same way that Irish people left these shores for other countries many decades ago in search of a better life that many Africans and Eastern Europeans are coming to Ireland now in pursuit of a better life. The questions the play poses are, do things usually turn out as expected for immigrants; and why, if not?
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Once Upon a Time & Not so Long Ago: A Double Bill
May 2006 O'Reilly Theatre
The uniqueness and originality of our developmental projects read more, Once Upon A Time & Not So Long Ago, the enthusiasm of the participants who took part in them and the enthusiastic reaction these projects have engendered in our audience were the reasons Arambe turned them into an evening-length performance for a five day run in the O’Reilly Theatre in May 2006.
The first half of the show, a fine-tuned version of Once Upon A Time, is set in Africa where the tradition of storytelling exists until it is disrupted by television, a symbol of modernity brought on stage by an African who returns to Africa after his sojourn abroad. The second half, Not So Long Ago, begins with the arrival of some Africans in the West, in this case, Ireland. The idea is that television has exposed them to another world where the pasture is seemingly greener. As a result, they emigrate. Every immigrant however has a story - good or bad, depressing or uplifting - to tell. Not So Long Ago skilfully explores, in an entertaining way, the selected stories of African immigrants living in Ireland. This was the first time that Africans would be representing their personal experiences on an Irish stage, themselves.
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The Gods are Not to Blame
September 2003 Project Arts Centre & February 2004 O’Reilly Theatre
The Originial Cast of The Gods are Not to Blame
To officially launch Arambe Productions in February 2004, the production of The Gods Are Not To Blame, which was originally co-directed by Bisi Adigun and Jimmy Fay for the 2003 Fringe Festival, was revived for a nine-day run in O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin.
About the Play:
The Gods Are Not To Blame is a direct transposition of the theme of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex to Nigerian soil by Ola Rotimi. Although Rotimi remains loyal to the plot of the original Greek play about a prophecy that a new-born child will grow up to kill his father and then marry his mother, his own version is peppered with Nigerian proverbs, song, music and dance. In The Gods, Odewale fulfils the prophecy because of his excessive love for his tribe. He is raised in another village from his father’s and kills a man who mocks his accent when they are fighting over the ownership of a farm. He later finds out that the man he kills, is his father and the woman he has married, is his mother.
In 2003 and 2004 Ireland that this play was produced, it was very relevant within Ireland’s emergent discourse of identity and ‘otherness’. The fundamental question The Gods asks is: what determines one’s identity? Is it our language, accent, parentage, colour of our skin, or place of birth?
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African Voices
March 16th 2003
Presented in the Project on the eve of the 2003 St Patrick’s Day Festival, African Voices is a one-off presentation to celebrate African oral tradition here in Ireland. The first part of the show featured African stories, African poems and fifty-three African proverbs while the second part included a stage adaptation of the BBC television game show, The Weakest Link; a performed reading of an extract from Abel Ugba’s novel Dear Mama; and a performance of an extract from Jimmy Murphy’s The Kings of The Kilburn High Road. This project featured performers from Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa and Zaire who are all living in Ireland.
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