The Colours of Our Fathers – A play by Favour Haruna

By Femi Osofisan

There are plays that tell stories, and then there are plays that embody them. Favour Haruna’s “The Colours of Our Fathers” falls into the latter category a production that feels less like sitting through a scripted performance and more like being drawn into a living ritual.

From the very first scene, the stage is alive with colour. The cast, dressed in richly patterned fabrics, fills the space with movement that feels both celebratory and solemn.

The backdrop of huts, masks, and forest imagery roots the play firmly in tradition, reminding the audience that this isn’t just theatre it’s a conversation with ancestry.

What stands out most is the integration of music and movement. The drummers, positioned as more than background, are active participants in the storytelling. Their rhythms drive the tension, their beats mirror the heart of the play. At moments when words fall away, the sound of the drum takes over, reminding us that heritage is often preserved in rhythm and dance more than in speech.

The narrative itself is not a straight line but a weaving together of memories, chants, and dialogues across generations. This structure makes the play feel layered sometimes challenging, but always purposeful. The actors shift between personal monologues and collective movement seamlessly, reflecting how individual experiences are inseparable from communal history.

Visually, the play is striking. The use of fabric and traditional attire is not mere costume but symbolism each piece of cloth, each mask, each gesture carries weight. There is a recurring theme of inheritance: what is passed down is not only joy and pride but also silence, wounds, and unfinished struggles.

If there’s a critique, it’s that the density of symbolism occasionally risks overwhelming the audience.

The sheer passion of the performers and the grounding vision of Haruna hold the production together.

The Colours of Our Fathers is not theatre designed to make you comfortable. It is theatre that makes you think, feel, and question. It challenges its audience to reflect on what they have inherited both the visible traditions and the unspoken histories that shape identity.

By the end, the applause feels less like a release and more like an offering. Haruna and the cast have given us something deeply rooted and profoundly human: a reminder that the past is never dead, it lives with us, in colour, in rhythm, and in memory.