On November 18th, I walked into the Eugene O’Neill Theatre to see FELA! on Broadway.  I was pretty curious about what it was going to be like since I heard it was a good play.  When walking in the theater to get my seat, I noticed how the theater was decorated.  There were freedom protest signs on the walls, pictures of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X on the walls, two disco balls on the ceiling, a big picture of Fela’s mother on the wall, plus the lights were producing the image of newspaper reports of Fela’s arrests.  I had no idea what they were about until the play started.

Fela Anikulapo- Kuti (Kevin Mambo, Sahr Ngaujah) is a young man who is sent to London by his parents for him to attend a medical college.  However, Fela grabs an interest in music and enrolls in Trinity College’s school of music.  He then begins writing his own music, forms a band and performs songs that become popular worldwide. His music and performances, however, make the military government in Nigeria come out and harass him, jail him constantly and nearly kill him on several occasions.

The play obviously had its fun and rough moments. For me though, most of the moments were lively and fun. Every few seconds of the play, there was a song, most of them wild songs you may want to dance to. The fact that there were so many songs and dances made FELA! a play to love. Some rough moments of the play got to me as well. Seeing how Fela and his people were being harassed and abused by the military was a very striking moment, but I love how Fela worked to fight back.

Everyone who made the play FELA! possible (Bill T. Jones, the show’s director/choreographer and Antibalas, the band) really know how to put on a show. The scenes where Fela and his band were performing make you feel like you are in a party or club. During the songs, the disco balls would spin while the multicolored lights would shine across the theater in different patterns. The special effects of the lights shone on the wall of the stage showing the words they were saying. Fela and the others would even make you and the audience to sing with them and get up and dance with them. “FELA!” is truly a play worth seeing; an experience of a lifetime you won’t forget.