BETTER ANGELS: A PARABLE by Andrea Scott, directed by Nigel Shawn Williams, with Akosua Amo-Adem, Sascha Cole and Peyson Rock (Call Me Scotty Productions). At Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace. August 7 at 7:45 pm, August 8 at 9 pm, August 9 at 12:30 pm, August 11 at 10 pm, August 13 at 5:15 pm, August 14 at 7:30 pm, August 15 at 5:15 pm, August 16 at 5:30 pm. See listing.
When does a job become a prison?
That’s the question Andrea Scott explores in Better Angels: A Parable, in which the young Ghanaian Akosua is hired by a Canadian couple, Leila and Greg, to work as their nanny/housekeeper. The liberal-minded pair, or so they believe themselves to be, laud the benefits Akosua gets by moving from Third World to First, but eventually she realizes there’s more confinement than freedom in her contract.
“I wrote the play four years ago after I’d seen a film called I Am Slave, the true story of a woman abducted by Arab traders and sold to an African couple,” recalls Scott. “She later worked for a family in England. I’d never before considered the possibility that someone working as a servant in the West could be imprisoned.”
Scott, who wrote the earlier SummerWorks hit Eating Pomegranates Naked, also ties the narrative to her frequent experience watching plays, usually by white authors, in which “black characters are at the mercy of white people or being saved by them. I wanted to write a show in which a woman of colour is empowered by her own wits.”
That’s the case with Akosua, who grows from a naive young woman to one able to best her employers, one of whom is white and the other biracial.
“But it’s as much a parable as a straight-ahead narrative,” continues Scott. “The one ‘character’ befriended by Akosua is a spider that spins a web in her room and represents Anansi, who figures prominently in African and Caribbean folklore.
“Anansi is cunning and sometimes wicked, able to turn the tables on those who think they are smarter than they actually are. The character figured prominently in optimistic tales told by slaves to their children: if you’re clever enough, you can get out of this situation.”
Often Anansi is a male figure, but Scott opts for a female version of the arachnid. “The matriarchal image in African culture is huge, and I have no trouble making the switch in gender.”
There’s some sharp humour in the piece, too, much of it situational as the well-off couple remind Akosua how lucky she is to be living with them in their comfortable Leaside house.
“Even with the laughs, I want audiences to understand there’s sometimes lots happening behind people’s front doors that’s never shared with neighbours. Modern-day slavery isn’t just happening in a faraway country but can be festering on your own street.”
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
