UNTITLED - Inua's New Play.

END OF SOHO, BEGINNERS GUIDE TO LEAF READING
Hey!Hope your October is going well fellas. Mine is swimming along at the mo, fought off a bout of cold, feeling good. The last night of UNTITLED at Soho was stupendous. My lady’s mother was in audience so I worked thrice as hard to deliver the story, push emotional whatnots etc and it musta worked, the audience responded with a standing ovation. We had changed the ending of the play, configured new lighting, fixed other little things that have made the show tighter. I am looking forward to testing it out on a non-London audience and today we go to Birmingham. The Brummies are a different breed you know, if Londoners where Nigerians, the Brummies would be Ghanians. Anyway, I will be at the Birmingham Rep - please send friends down!


http://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/event/untitled
20 - 23rd of October (4 shows plus matinee on Sat)


The play begins with the unnamed brother in a clearing in a forest, talking to the spirits of the land. He hears their responses by reading the leaves. The following is entirely fictional, so if it does not work do not claim me a lair, cool?

BEGINNERS GUIDE TO SPIRIT-LEAF READING
Welcome to the ancient art of leaf reading. This practice started in the 5th Century when hunters would pause by thorns flecked with flesh off their fleeing prey and say to themselves ‘Supper went this way. By this here drop of blood, I can tell it is afraid and knows death is near, thus I shall follow it with my fork ready and condiments of HP and English mustard. Could do with a spot of salt as well’. As time passed, this art was fined and tuned to such subtlety, practitioners could read the minds of dwellers in other realms. The following outlines the 3 steps to spirit leaf reading.


1) Chalk.
You will need a pouch of powdered chalk. Flour will do, but chalk is best. Take a fist full and dust your hands with it, working it into your skin, ensuring that a thin fine layer covers your palms. The colour ‘white’ contains all colours of the spectrum and when communicating with the spirit world, one that sits invisibly on ours, touching their world with white allows all possible shades of thought to pass into our world - which unfortunately is still governed by colour.


2) Leaf.
Generally all forms of flora will allow something of the spirit world through. However leaves are revered as evidence of the creator’s touch - palm prints of God littered through the world; what you might find on a pane of glass after a careless window cleaner is done (or see Titanic *that scene*). To cradle one is to shake hands with the divine. Choose a leaf that is as closely sized to your palms as possible. The keen eyed spirit leaf reader might also find a leaf whose spine matches the lines on their palms. This allows for easier perception of the spirit’s mind.


3) Reading.
Imagine the leaf is a page from a book of braille. Not much can go wrong after this. Close your eyes if you feel it is necessary, trace your floured fingers slowly and carefully down the spines of the leaf, paying attention to bumps and bruises. As if your fingertips were needles and the leaf were vinyl, soon enough, the bumps will become sound, sound become vowels, vowels clipped by consonants and you will hear them speak!


4) And there you have it. Naked Tree huggers practice Extreme Leaf Reading, but usually die or loose their minds immediately as being so close to the source is more power than our feeble human bodies can handle. After the spirits ask their question, set about answering them and as the unnamed brother in the play found, you too might find the meaning of your life!


That’s all folks.
Inua.