Vodou Nation (Leeds & tour)

NOTE: The following review dates from June 2004 and this production’s original dates in Leeds.

One of the secrets of good theatre, it is said, is timing. Vodou Nation, conceived to celebrate the bicentenary of Haiti’s emergence from colonial rule to become the world’s first black republic, didn’t, perhaps, get it entirely right: it had to fight its way out through the latest coup, which toppled President Aristide, and now has to look back on a country devastated by floods. That it has made it at all is evidence of some fortitude; that it makes it in such good nick and with such generous energy bespeaks an indomitable spirit we should celebrate.

Not so much a piece of theatre as a concept album with live video, Vodou Nation principally features an eight-piece band playing “vodou rock”. For the uninitiated, that’s a mostly rather bland form of dance music which occasionally erupts into something far more exciting, be it ethnic lamentation or wild, drum-based cavorting.

The band, RAM, is apparently the house combo of the Port-au-Prince Hotel Oloffson (immortalised, we’re informed, by Graham Greene) and is led by the hotel’s owner Richard Morse, who sings the show’s mercifully few English-language songs in a foggy drone that doesn’t quite mask the banality of their lyrics.

On stage, meanwhile, there’s a profusion of colour, dance and movement that seeks to capture the history, richness and cultural religiosity of Haiti in an allegorical pageant which, too often alas, lacks visual focus. It’s like peering down a kaleidoscope without knowing whether to take in the unfocussed images on the screen (flown in and out upstage) or to concentrate upon a struggle stage left or the antics of a strangely masked figure stage right. Without the synopsis contained in the programme, it would be quite impossible to divine what’s going on: even with it, it’s not easy.

But finally, it’s hard to gainsay a live band and endless energy. And whilst her movement is limited, the LUNISE, gorgeous in multi-coloured body stocking, brings a fine, strong and when necessary plangent, voice to her role as Anakaona (‘an Amerindian Poet Queen’). A sheer delight.

Credited as author, designer and co-director (along with WYP’s resident Caribbean carnival expert, Geraldine Connor), Brett Bailey has thrown vast quantities of history, mythology and ritual into the Vodou Nation pot. The result is a bit like an interesting piece of work in progress, desperately in need of narrative focus.

– reviewed by Ian Watson (at Leeds’ West Yorkshire Playhouse)