When Ifeoma Fafunwa returned to her native land of Nigeria after spending about 20 years in the United States, she started noticing odd behaviors among the women.
“They were very cold to one another,” she says, on the phone from a terminal at the airport in Lagos, Nigeria. “And I noticed that when my husband would do something like help with the dishes, I’d see these strange looks on the faces of our guests. If I had friends at my house, and my husband came home, my friends would rise and ease out. I started to wonder what that was all about.”
She soon recognized that “there were all these unspoken rules about not disrupting your husband’s space, comfort or ego.”
What are the ramifications of living in a profoundly patriarchal society that coddles and indulges males from the time they’re born?
Pondering that question, Fafunwa sadly found a long list of ugly answers. The system turned women against women, as they grew fiercely protective of their husbands and suspicious of other women. And, most disturbingly, it turned men against women, which was reflected in everything from the inevitable double-standards to rampant atrocities such as female genital mutilation and rape.
Fafunwa, who describes herself as a “theater-maker” rather than a writer or a director, began to wonder if there was a story to tell here. It turned out there were many. The result is “Hear Word!: Naija Woman Talk True,” a docu-theater piece created by Fafunwa that has been disrupting the status quo in Nigeria since it premiered there in 2014. It now arrives in Cambridge, as the American Repertory Theater presents the show, Jan. 26 to Feb. 11, at the Loeb Drama Center.
The statistics are grim. Sexual attacks are an epidemic in many parts of Africa, including Nigeria. A promotional video for “Hear Word!” states that seven out of 10 girls in Nigeria are molested or sexually assaulted before the age of 15. Despite the urgency of the problem, there are no institutions or help lines for victims of domestic abuse there.
Men hit women, marry child brides and engage in polygamy, which is legal in Nigeria’s northern states.
Fafunwa also discovered that discrimination doesn’t discriminate.
“From poor families in rural villages to the wealthiest families in [the largest city of] Lagos, it was the same story,” she says. “It didn’t get any better.”
Still, despite this bleak cultural portrait, Fafunwa was determined to make a show that not only informed, but also uplifted.
“I didn’t want to create the same old angst-filled feminist piece,” she says. “I didn’t want to alienate men or anyone who was on the fence [regarding these issues]. I knew the show needed to be an interesting, exciting, positive story.”
Fafunwa, a fan of “The Vagina Monologues” and “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” envisioned a collection of different stories with a unifying theme. She conducted interviews with women, and she adapted other authors’ stories, fashioning them into a theater piece that includes music and dance.
“The first half of the show describes the atrocities,” says Fafunwa. “The last part asks the question: Hey, women, what are you going to do about it?”
When the show opened in 2014, it hit a nerve. Visceral responses during the performances were followed by impassioned discussions in the lobby.
“I counted ticket sales,” says Fafunwa, “and when we got up to 20,000 tickets sold, I thought, ‘Wow, 20,000 lives have shared this story.’ But then I discovered that some people have seen the show five or six or seven times. I realized ‘Hear Word!’ was some kind of a therapy session,” and then she laughs.
“Therapy is a shameful thing in Nigeria,” she adds. “It’s not accepted the way it is in Hollywood or Cambridge. People were buying tickets like they were going to counseling sessions.”
The problems that are addressed by the play are complex, systemic and deeply rooted, and Fafunwa – the daughter of an American mother and a Nigerian father – admits that she is not exempt.
“I see these issues in myself,” she says. “My daughter may want to jump on the couch or sit in a funny way, and I’ll tell her to ‘sit up,’ but I wouldn’t say that to my son. Here I am, this woman who has created a play about female empowerment, and yet I catch myself dealing with my daughter differently than my son. Where did that come from?”
Fafunwa isn’t immune, and neither is the United States. Only the deeply delusional would sit through a performance of “Hear Word!” and dismiss its issues as the problems of a Third World country.
“You see the same thing in America with #metoo,” says Fafunwa.
She credits that movement with providing a chance for change, and she hopes “Hear Word!” can be part of it.
“I believe change is coming,” she says. “Now with #metoo, men are losing their jobs in America. Things like that are beginning to scare men here. They see there can be ramifications for their actions. There’s going to be a backlash [from men], and that’s when we’ll know that real change is coming. But it’s going to be like childbirth: It’s going to be painful.”
“Hear Word!: Naija Woman Talk True"
WHEN: Jan. 26 to Feb. 11
WHERE: Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge
TICKETKS: Start at $25
INFO: 617-547-8300; https://americanrepertorytheater.org/