Fighting for survival: Juma Sharkah (Martha/Frisky)and Weruche Opia (Finda). Photo credit: Johan Persson
Play: Liberian Girl
Theatre: Royal Court Theatre
Playwright: Diana Nneka Atuona
Director: Matthew Dunster
Review by Joy Francis
Diana Nneka Atuona’s award winning debut takes no prisoners as it uses the plight of a teenage girl to highlight the horrors of the first Liberian civil war (1989-1996) and the role of child soldiers in the deaths of 200,000 people.
Brutal, visceral and immersive, audience members are made to stand and endure the intense 90 minute production up close, directed with great verve and nerve by Matthew Dunster.
Smart 14 year old Martha (astounding newcomer Juma Sharkah) is being prepared for Bush School for girls by her strict grandmother Maime Esther (a solid Cecilia Noble). Oblivious to what the school is, she is led to believe it is essential to her blossoming womanhood.
This plan is promptly thwarted by news of rebel fighters advancing towards their village. Initially reluctant to leave, Maime Esther is persuaded to flee her home with her granddaughter in tow disguised as a boy to stop her being raped.
After being ambushed by coked-up teenage rebel fighters Double Trouble (an engaging Michael Ajao) and Killer (played with troubled menace by Valentine Olukoga), Martha is abducted and forced to join the Small Boys Unit. Led by the maniacal Commander (Fraser James), she is drilled to be a child soldier and bombarded with false promises of a death free life.
Renamed Frisky by her trigger-happy peers, Martha inevitably becomes a murderer to protect her true identity. When Killer shoots a young woman and urges Martha to rape the dead girl’s friend Finda (a stellar Weruche Opia) she manages to fake it, saving both their lives.
Vulnerable child soldiers: Juma Sharkah (Martha/Frisky),Landry Adelard (Soldier) and Valentine Olukoga (Killer). Photo credit: Johan Persson.
A grateful Finda, labelled as ugly by the child soldiers, is relentlessly exploited as a cook and cleaner. A feisty survivor herself, Finda persuades Martha to take her on as a wife to allow her to “rest”. Finda’s candidness enables Martha to secretly connect with her hidden femininity and learn the terrible secret of the Bush School for girls.
Liberian Girl shows the many casualties of war, including the 15,000 children who were recruited into the Small Boys Units. At a time when Boko Haram’s abduction and rape of young girls and murder spree continues unchecked in Nigeria, the mistreatment of vulnerable young people forcibly separated from their families is timely and relevant.
Despite the convincing and emotionally charged performances, the play belongs to the young actors, especially Juma Sharkah and Weruche Opia. They give character, humour and heart-rending life to the misuse and abuse of child soldiers and the rampant misogyny.
Matthew Dunster’s directing is in your face phenomenal. The sheer force and physicality of the production, with actors risking life and limb (as well as those of the audience), is largely seamless, through unnerving. It is like being trapped on a James Cameron film set with sensory overload courtesy of pyrotechnics, gun shots, strobe lighting and smoke effects.
Although billed as immersive, the play is also emotionally exhausting. You are in the middle of a war zone with the occasional light relief. Placing the audience in the position of helpless bystander is a clever and possibly manipulative move by the production team.
Having guns pointed at you, being corralled or screamed and sneered at by the actors leaves you feeling angrily impotent, but unlike the child soldiers, you can safely walk away.
Atuona’s unapologetic Liberian Girl is a brave, risky but necessary production. The show will not work for everyone and may stir up some uncomfortable memories for abuse survivors, but it is essential viewing.
Liberian Girl will be at the Royal Court until 31 January 2015.
The play will then be running at the CLF Art Café, the Bussey Building in Peckham between from 3 to 7 February 2015 and at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, Tottenham, from 10 to 14 February 2015.