Birmingham Rep Ellam’s poem about a basketball-star demi-god and his goddess-mother fighting celestial beings gets a stunning out on the stage The Half God of Rainfall tells the story of Demi, a Nigerian basketball hero and Olympic sportsman whose tears cause rivers to overflow. He is also the son of Zeus. But since that other half-god, Michael Jordan, flagrantly displayed his supernatural powers by actually flying on a court, the gods have outlawed half-men from participating in human sports. Here is a story about what happens when the ambition and desires of mortals come face-to-face with the caprices of celestial beings. Inua Ellams’ often striking poem, recently published in a handsome standalone volume, is a playful, epic contemporary retooling of Greek mythology. But still mythological, nonetheless. In Nancy Medina’s taut, stunning staging of Ellams’ words the epic is revealed to be much smaller. While still a story of feuding gods and journeys to the edge of the universe, its theatrical scale now feels plausibly, sometimes terrifyingly human. Its inherent violence no longer incidental metaphor, but structural and real. Continue reading...
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