Man Enough is the voice of man crying to be heard, yelling to be saved from a world that thinks he is ‘Super Man’; it is the story of man and the fear to speak; it is the story of man speaking for the first time.
Most people think men don’t cry; but most people are wrong. Every day, men all over the world buckle under the burden of trying to be ‘man enough’. The pressure of trying to meet up with the ever increasing demands of an insensitive and over demanding society continues to weigh down the modern man:
Bruno is your everyday alpha male; old, egoistic, rich, full of himself and ready to play. But under the puffed underbelly is a morbid fear he is desperately trying to hide;
Onyilo comes to you as a regular guy who is trying to run a more-than-regular studio. But to achieve the more-than-regular-dream, you must do the more-than-regular…or not. With his world trying to explode before his very eyes, time may not be on his side.
Thino lives in a world where it is better to deny the existence of your reality by putting on the religious cloak; a typical example of religion being the opium…but this opium will wear off soon and he will be faced with the reality of the choices he has to make.
Through the lives of these three everyday men, Man Enough x-rays the reality of today’s man as he tries to create his world in today’s upwardly mobile society. More than ever before we see man’s vulnerability; we see his fear and most of all, we see the choices he has to make for self, family and society as he tries to maintain the traditional masculinity;
For the first time on stage, we are faced with the various pressure the man has to struggle with; financial pressure, pressure of being rejected or accepted by the women folk, pressure from the extended family and the general pressure society puts on the man in his quest to prove that he is man enough.
Man Enough reflects the conversation to be had, of changing gender roles and stereotypes in recent public discourse.‘Boys are not smiling’ cannot be truer in a society that has no pity for the men; it is time to see how stereotypical narratives hurt not just the women alone; they hurt the men too. Man Enough is not the story of three men; it is the story of every man – from Africa to Asia, to Europe and America – everyman who must prove to the world that he is man enough.
Bolanle Austen-Peters brings to you another scintillating production featuring Tana Adelana, Gideon Okeke, Alex Unusual, Lord Frank, Moshood Fattah, Ralph Okoro, Josephine Ewuru and more.
MAN ENOUGH is showing at the Terra Kulture Arena every Sunday in February, 3pm and 7pm. tickets available at www.terrakulture.com
