THE HANGOVER REPORT – Jocelyn Bioh’s NOLLYWOOD DREAMS underwhelms despite some beaming performances

Sandra Okuboyejo and Nana Mensah in MCC Theater’s production of “Nollywood Dreams” by Jocelyn Bioh (photo by Daniel J Vasquez).

Last week, Jocelyn Bioh’s Nollywood Dreams opened Off-Broadway at MCC Theater. The new comedy – which tells the story of an aspiring actress who tries to make it big in the Nigerian film industry – is a follow-up to the playwright’s ebullient School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play (a big hit for MCC Theater in 2017), as well as her inspired Merry Wives (Ms. Bioh’s adaptation of the Bard’s Merry Wives of Windsor for Shakespeare in the Park this past summer).

Like her previous efforts, Nollywood Dreams is meant to be a straightforward, feel good comedy. However, in its hot pursuit to create a strictly “dreams can come true” modern day fairytale and its staunch avoidance of pretty much any substantive content, the work unfortunately underwhelms and plays out like a forgettable extended sitcom episode. The play’s saving grace is its setting, which – like both School Girls and Merry Wives – provides a fascinatingly exotic backdrop (at least for most theater goers) for the story to unfold against.

Despite my misgivings about the play itself, director Saheem Ali – whom Ms. Bioh collaborated with on Merry Wives – gives the play a spirited staging that ingeniously utilizes the exceedingly wide stage of the Newman Mills Theater. Although the performances tend to lean towards broadness – as if to compensate for the play’s feather weight – I nonetheless left the theater with a smile on my face, thanks largely to a number of raucously good natured, genuinely beaming performances (particularly Sandra Okuboyejo and Nana Mensah, who portray playfully feuding sisters).

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

NOLLYWOOD DREAMS
Off-Broadway, Play
MCC Theater
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through November 28

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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