The Half God of Rainfall

by Inua Ellams

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 4 May 2019

Nancy Medina directs Rakie Ayola as Modupe and Kwami Odoom as Demi in a play which mixes elements of Yoruba and Greek mythology in a contemporary setting - Demi is the child of Zeus and a human mother Modupe, and is a star basketball player, even though there is (apparently) a convention that demigods should not take part in sports events.

Very soon, it becomes apparent that basketball is not really the point, although Kwami Okoom's adolescent athleticism brings an infectious energy to the stage. Once the boy has progressed from local success to being part of the Nigerian Olympic team in 2012, and hence a challenge to the Olympian Zeus which is impossible for the jealous god to ignore, the play turns to examine the abusiveness and misogyny lurking beneath the many stories of Zeus's amours with human women. Modupe in her grief raises an impassioned revolt against the predator god in a climax of astonishing rage and power.

The two actors hold together a story which veers off in unexpected directions and raises issues which are too easily ignored in the conventional accounts of the hero stories, drenched as they are in the masculine vision of the world. Here, the rage and pain of the exploited women in the stories cannot be ignored, as Modupe's response to her son's death has cataclysmic consequences for the Olympian order, represented not only by the character's anger but also by extremely effective aural and visual effects (Max Johns, designer, Jackie Shemesh, lighting, and Tanuja Amarasuriya, sound).

At only eighty minutes, the play covers a lot of ground in a heady mixture of lyrical outbursts depicting a harsh world in which humans must struggle hard under the oppression of basically feckless deities; but there is a cautious note of optimism at the end.