Celebrated Nigerian actor Olu Jacobs talks to SANDY HAZEL about his role in the adapted Playboy of the Western World currently playing at the Abbey, and compares his experiences in 1970s Dublin with the city he sees today
Olu Jacobs, veteran star of many stage and film productions worldwide, is currently performing in a revamped Playboy of the Western World at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He plays Malomo, the father of the playboy, who may or may not have been murdered. The production – an adaptation of the JM Synge original – is scripted by Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle.
In this new version, the playboy of the title is a well-educated asylum seeker from Nigeria, who is on the run after apparently killing his father (Jacobs) with a pestle for pounding yams.
It is Jacobs’ first role on the Abbey stage but not his first appearance in Dublin. He worked in Dublin in the 1970s when he appeared in Richard’s Cork Leg by Brendan Behan in an Abbey production at the Olympia Theatre, Murderous Angels at the Gaiety Theatre and Black Man’s Country, directed by the legendary Hilton Edwards, at the Gate Theatre.
Jacobs has worked extensively with, among others, the National Theatre of Nigeria, the National Theatre London, the Sheffield Crucible and the Birmingham Rep, while his television and film credits are too numerous to mention. He runs his own production company in Nigeria, and has had a love affair with acting since his childhood.
“I always enjoyed play acting at school when I was a kid,” reveals Jacobs. “One day I came across a troupe of dancers and singers handing out leaflets advertising their show. I went home and convinced my parents to bring us. I was totally hooked on acting from that evening. I was only seven but I do remember that it was about the battle between good and evil. I noticed that the audiences’ faces would light up and their laughter came from their stomachs, it was such a physical thing. I was impressed.
“My father did not agree that acting was an honourable profession for a young man. It would be okay as a hobby but not respectable enough to make a living. In those days many actors only made their money from cash thrown into a pot at the edge of the stage.”
Even with tension surrounding his decision, Jacobs has never regretted his move to London in the late 1960s, where he spent two years studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). At the time, an actor could not get work without an agent, and could not get an agent without work.
Jacobs was spirited in his start: “I sort of invited myself along to a particular audition for a BBC Play For Today part that I had heard about,” he laughs. “I made sure that I was first in the queue. I told them I had an agent, my friend’s agent, I got the job and phoned that agent immediately to tell him and he took me on.”
Was Jacobs stereotyped into roles because of his origins? “Maybe there was an element of that at the time, but I just put myself out there to get all the experience that I could. I travelled to nearly every repertory theatre in the UK just to get on stage. As a result, when I did come back to London the casting directors recognised me and I could start getting good parts.”
So what is a good part? If Morgan Freeman is a baritone then Olu Jacobs is a bass. With a voice like his, he has been offered some pretty plum ones. “I have played a couple of kings and presidents. In fact, the last time I played a president was in Murderous Angels at the Gaiety in Dublin.”
Jacobs prefers the stage to TV and film work. “Working on the stage you can feel the audience. It can be a lonely experience when you are working in front of a camera but on stage an animal instinct kicks in. Even though the audience is unseen, sitting there in the dark, an actor can sense them and can read the emotions in the air. It becomes possible to control and hold a line for just a moment, to hold the audience waiting. To hear that silence, it is a powerful feeling.”
His advice to young actors is to “remember that acting is not the only profession in the business; you can still work in the industry as a director, technician or wardrobe. All are essential to the production. Look at Bisi and Roddy, working together as writers to adapt this play. It is a creative and generous process, both bringing their culture to the process.”
Jacobs loves his stint in Dublin and compares it with the city he knew in the 1970s. Admitting that Dublin was a grim place then, Jacobs illustrates how bleak it could actually get: “I was rehearsing Black Man’s Country at the Gate Theatre and had just popped out to meet a friend for tea on O’Connell Street, such a normal day. We heard an explosion and thought little of it, until we returned. The bomb had been right opposite the theatre and a part of the theatre where I usually sat had been blown away. I had missed the blast by a whisker. That was a bleak experience.
“Dublin has changed in many ways, but knowing it then and seeing it now, it makes me very happy to see people in Dublin now more relaxed. This world has changed so much.”
The Playboy of the Western World runs until Saturday 24 November at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre (Tel: 01 8787 222, Web: www.abbeytheatre.ie).
