Transform Season – La Mamba & Something Dark (Leeds)

This month sees the West Yorkshire Playhouse run Transform, a celebration of up and coming innovative theatre in Yorkshire, with a focus on provoking and inspiring its audiences.

The West Yorkshire Playhouse has a festival feel with varied, short performances ongoing throughout the day punctuated with longer stage performances in the evenings. Saturday 11th of June saw a range of theatrical delights, including poetry, plays and performance art. The event itself seems to lack organisation – it was not clear what was going on where, and the staff I asked seemed equally confused. However, once you do stumble upon a certain event, the individual performances themselves are all exactly what they set out to be; inspiring, moving and thought provoking.

Here are two of my highlights from Saturday evening : 

La Mamba, dramatised from the book Homeland by George Obama

Simon Manyonda acutely portrays a Nairobi gangsta whose outlook on life is radically changed through his local football club. Comedic delivery punched with a saddening reality makes this performance incredibly moving. The ending is uplifting and hopeful, representing what the Transform season is about – reinvention, change and empowerment.

Something Dark by Lem Sisay

Acclaimed poet Lem Sisay tells the audience the tales of his incredible life, beginning with stories of a difficult childhood punctuated by a powerful lyricism that makes for both a hilarious and moving performance. Lem Sissay was adopted by a Wigan family after his Ethiopian mother chose a better life for him whilst she studied. At eleven years old, his adopted family put him into care and Sissay talks about his struggle with his own identity, finding his family and the difficulties he faced living alone. Sissay is an excellent rhapsodist, capturing the audience with sometimes unnerving theatrics, peppered with moments of mirthful hilarity.

Transform theatre captures the importance of political and ethical change, inviting these fundamental questions through theatre.

Transform season runs until Saturday 18th June at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. A full brochure can be found at www.wyp.org.uk