In Knight Watch, each of the four acts similarly represents one of the four elements. The first is earth, as the show’s main protagonist, Michael – a carpenter, sculptor, and general all-round hero much like the Last Airbender – forages the land for wood to “create the earth”. Like most young gang members intent on keeping out of trouble, Michael tries to keep away from the gangs and to “do his own thing”, but he is dragged into the culture he has tried to escape. Air becomes the focus of the second act as Lulayan Isaac, tribal leader of the House of Herne, attempts to master the wind by building a flute. The earth is then consumed by fire in the third section, with live hip hop drumming adding fuel to the flames – until the final element, water, totally submerges the destroyed city by the end of the last act. “Yes, it’s a very huge story”, Ellams agrees, somewhat modestly.
Inua Ellams performing The 14th Tale. Photo: Edmund Collier
Music plays a large role in the piece. A live soundtrack by Zashiki Warashi drum and flute duo, Aki Fujimoto and Mikey Kirkpatrick – two musicians Ellams met four years ago – help unite the various strands. Meanwhile, since moving to the UK from Nigeria as a teenager, Ellams himself has forged a career as a graphic artist, poet, and now playwright – and his work expertly weaves all three to form shows that are beautifully symbolic. “My plays often begin as poems”, he admits. “And a lot of the time my poem begins with an image. In questioning the importance of the image and trying to unpick why it stands out to me, that process of interrogation usually gives rise to a poem, which in turn end up being extended plays. It’s buried in my background as a graphic designer and image-maker, and so when I write I try to make pictures with words”. As such, it isn’t hard to understand the crucial outdoor element used in staging Knight Watch.
For Ellams, plays require “talk, shouts, laughter, screams” for which alfresco staging is “wholly conducive”. Debuting the play at GDIF was a natural starting point, and next up it can be seen nationwide in spaces as varied as a loading bay at the Southbank Centre on 22nd July, and in the Curve Garden, an urban park in the middle of Dalston on 10th July.
“I decided to move into theatre because I liked that I could control the silence, the space, imagination – how the audience absorbs the story”, reflects Ellams. “So going back into an outdoor space where you have no control and surrendering to the elements that I ran away from in the first place when I went inside the theatre, it’s terrifying, but it’s a challenge I’m looking forward to. The weather can just do anything, there might be helicopters overhead”¦but whatever happens, happens”. It’s a brave philosophy, but one Ellams hopes will succeed. “Every theatre has a different outside space, and I hope it conveys the background to the story. The set is assembled easily in each theatre’s outdoor space – it resembles a shelter just stuck together with pieces of wood to be in keeping with the tale. The look we went for is post-Armageddon: we are the last remnants of this civilisation and we need to work out what has happened”. At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t matter how convenient the set is – as Ellams rightly observes, outside anything can go wrong. “In Dalston, the show will be beside a Christian church so there’s even a possibility it could be staged amongst praise and worship”, he laughs, with little trace of anxiety.
This spirited approach to his work is no surprise. Ellams tells me that his shift from his first love, graphic art, to poetry and theatre stems from a cherished friendship during his Dublin years which “focused on language and pushing it as far as you can”. When that friend committed suicide, Ellams pushed himself into writing as a way of staying true to that shared passion for words. Then, when paint eventually became too expensive, he realised that poetry was “a cheaper way to be creative with my fingers” – a way of pushing boundaries with words, rather than just images. Unlike many performance poets, Ellams’ work has broken through and gained recognition in the mainstream media. The Times called him “London’s hottest new spoken word talent” and his debut show, The 14th Tale, won a Fringe First Award before being presented at the National Theatre. His subsequent works, Untitled and Black T-Shirt Collection, have been staged at the Soho and the National respectively. Ellams embraces such mainstream attention but admits that, “everything I write, I would write regardless of whether lots of people were listening or not. It could be the National or a small theatre in the middle of nowhere and I still would write. I don’t necessarily write for an audience, I write for myself first and foremost”. If anything, the main stage empowers him, feeding him with the fire to think big: “I write about big things or questions – interrogations that I think are worth answering. As long as the audience can sit down and listen to the words, that’s all they need to do to understand my work”.
Performance poetry is still often regarded as a niche genre but this perception is shifting – this year the Edinburgh Fringe programme featured an, admittedly slim, section dedicated to spoken word for the first time – and with artists like Ellams creating full-length shows such as Knight Watch with its quicksilver lyrics and its willingness to tackle big themes, this process of cross-over can only continue. His new work is courageous in the way it explores urban tribalism through poetry and makes a plea for harmony. “With poetry all you need is a voice and a microphone. And even the microphone is optional – all you need is your voice”, Ellams muses. “It’s something that is fiery, that is intimate, that is playful – I think poetry has something at the moment. And I think, in that respect, poetry is definitely of this moment, of this time”.
Knight Watch tours the UK from 23rd June – 21st September 2012.
