To make this yuletide season memorable for Lagosians, Lufodo Productions is staging the famous play, The King Must Dance Naked, a story woven around a man-woman riddle and dramatisation of a radical quest for change through the confrontation of unbalanced laws of human existence.

Written by Fred Agbeyegbe, the production opened yesterday at the Glover Memorial Hall, Lagos, yesterday, December 22, and will continue to Sunday, December 31.

Co-directed by Toritseju Akiya Ejoh, a professional actor for film, television, radio and theatre, and Adebunmi Adewale; it is executive produced by Olu Jacobs and Joke Silva-Jacobs, and Adesoji Jacobs as producer.

Speaking on the play, Joke Silva, who previously played the lead role of Queen Odosun in the play in 1993, noted that Agbeyegbe has many remarkable plays, but The King Must Dance Naked was chosen for a special reason

She said: “It’s a play that looks at culture, tradition, leadership, and how all those things intersect. Where do they divide?”

On the relevance of the play in Nigeria today, Ejoh said, “In ritual cleansing of the society, we come into the world naked and we would live naked. Nakedness in this context is not seen in a derogatory form, but it’s seen in a plain and truthful form. Naked we came and naked we will go.

“As a king, you will not bathe yourself when you transition; some other people will bathe you. So what have you to hide? The play, therefore, is an introspection into leadership, to the test on the quality of a leader if you are willing to be accountable. That’s what the play is actually asking. Is leadership willing to be accountable?

“The king being the almighty, will he succumb to the directives of the ones that we do not see? Who is at play here? These are the questions that arise from the text The King Must Dance Naked, and its interpretation in movement, dance and music is what the audience here will see, when we open.”