Ola Dada: interview with the award-winning Canadian stand-up comic
Is stand-up comedy a form of theatre?.Some would say no, but I would beg to differ especially in the light of the work of Ola Dada, one of the newest and most talented stand-up comedians who comes out of Fort McMurray by way of Nigeria. I have just seen a performance by Ola at the Absolute Comedy Club in Ottawa where he had the audience howling with laughter and the actor was good enough to grant me this interview the morning after his opening show.
A.R. Your talents are so diverse that it is difficult to define the nature of this special sort of “stand-up” but what emerges is both the way you deconstruct ideas that appear unacceptable and the way you show your great gifts as an actor. You not only speak beautifully but you also use your whole body on stage including your facial expressions. and even your eyes. You change your style of speech at the drop of a hat. As well, when something strikes you as problematic you unexpectedly stop what you are saying and suddenly laugh at the audience . You break the tension by changing the tone and style of your speech with a huge smile. You are a perfect verbal and corporeal mimic and consequently, you are clearly an excellent actor! It is quite amazing. How is it that you perform this way? Is it something you picked up naturally or was it a technique you were taught?
O.D. Actually I speak very quickly and I can tell that if people are laughing very hard. they will not hear my response so to break the rhythm , I breathe for a second and that moment of change is as much for myself as for the audience. It comes down to creating a space for people in the audience to reset their reactions. Sometimes I stop completely if I have made a very funny joke. These jokes are quite loose but when I’m on stage I could very well come up with a new line as opposed to the one I had already prepared. That depends very much on the audience reaction. Sometimes if it works very well I will expand on the joke or if it is not closely related to the punch line I don’t expand anything but just keep my lines moving. The audience neither knows what is coming nor what is supposed to be a big laugh so I have to change the script based on their spontaneous reaction to the joke. That is how I gage my interaction with them….it is actually a little dance that we do. I know I don’t always talk about things related to the experiences of a lot of people but what I try to do is to describe the event and then bring the audience into it.
A.R. Do you improvise a lot on stage
O.D. All the time. I don’t have a script but I have a set list of jokes that I intend to go through but within the jokes are set up in such a way that the “punch line” is at the end but when I enter that joke I haven’t completely memorized the way of saying it. What I do is try to get to the next joke with as few words as possible. The thing is to keep the audience engaged. That makes it possible for a person to watch the show one night and then return the next night and laugh at different parts of the same joke because that content always seems to be changing.
A.R. I like the way you seem to be speaking very seriously and suddenly you stop, change the tone; then you laugh, look at the audience and say something that is ridiculous and the audience howls. If you connect with the spectators is it based both on what you say or on your physical reaction and your mime? I had the impression it was based on everything given the fact that you are not just a stand up comic but you are a real actor and a very good one. For example all that business about pigeons was so funny.
O.D. Pigeons are scary!
A.R. What is scary about pigeons?
O.D. The eyes! They terrify you . But mainly they poo on your head! There are a lot more pigeons in Toronto than there are in Vancouver, because people feed them in Toronto. It was very concerning for us. Pigeons there seem to be so comfortable with human beings. I had never seen that before, honestly. There was a regular guy sitting on a bench talking on the phone and a pigeon sat right beside him for such a long time and the fellow wasn’t even feeding it. The pigeon just watched him talking and I asked myself…What is happening here?
A.R. Your talent for mime was revealed at that point because when you explained how you didn’t like pigeons. You started twitching your head back and forth like a pigeon, in fact you became a pigeon. It was absolutely fantastic. You are almost as good as Marcel Marceau! did you study mime?
O.D. No. Its just that in terms of stand up comedy, the people (or animals) I watch have to provide a visual description in terms of how they express themselves and what they do. It is also necessary to do that to get to the next level of stand-up because the people who decide feel it is important for the audience to see what you are talking about and that way it is easier for the spectators to laugh so I try to become the character (whether its my mom, my father my manager, a pigeon or a horse).
A.R. I gather audiences are different in each of the cities where you have performed: Vancouver, Fort McMurray, Toronto and Ottawa. If so what are the differences?
O.D I found that people are more relaxed in Vancouver and they laugh differently. There I get the feeling that they aren’t sure they should laugh at different stuff but I do understand when people are enjoying themselves when they smile or cover their face. Its because the culture is different in each city. In Toronto people give big loud laughs to represent their expressive personalities. Las night in Ottawa people gave a whole body laught!.
A.R. Chris Timms, the host of the evening, also a very professional comic delivered his speeches in a very definite rhythm so what he said almost sounded like poetry and your work has a lot of that quality. You maintain a rhythm even when you are interrupted by the physical or vocal reactions, sudden spurts of loudness or swearing but the rhythm was almost hypnotic and quite extraordinary.
O.D You have a good ear because a lot of people who come to stand up don’t catch that. The rhythm is like the timing up to the punch line. If you watch a stand-up comic you can tell where the joke is going and when the punch-line is about to hit and you obviously caught that yesterday.
A.R. Is there anything else you would like to say about the way you work?
O.D Oh man! I listen a lot to my jokes. Usually I record them and listen to them afterwards because writing down my jokes slows down the creative process as opposed to recording them and then adding verbally what I want to do. I will watch the film (also recorded), listen to the joke change it and record it again and listen to it again. so I have the new version immediately without rewriting it.
A.R.You do that at home after the show.
O.D. Yeah! And sometimes watching these recordings I do realize where I should pause or what I should emphasize. For example, the joke about going into a public sauna naked with your friends. When you start the show you want to get the first laughs as quickly as possible. And when I make fun of a place it isn’t in a malicious way. For example. when I spoke of Saskatoon ….I try to find a factual issue with which no one can disagree. I said Saskatoon is flat whereas Fort McMurray is cold. A lot of times people will say “so you hate fort McMurray?” and I answer “no I hate the cold”…which doesn’t upset anyone.
Actually I love stand-up comedy. It’s a very versatile kind of performance that can be represented in any shape or form. And even though I think I have learned everything about it I watch someone do something I haven’t seen before I learn new things.
When you start with stand-up you do 5 minutes, then a strong 5 minutes, then 1 0 minutes , then a strong 10 minutes, then a strong 20 minutes but the leap from 20 to 45 minutes is big leap..You might even perform those 20 minutes for a couple of years before you graduate to 45. I finally had enough contact with the audience for a 45 minute set but I did not have the rhythm nor the pacing . Also when people are sitting down listening to stand-up and laughing for 20 minutes or more, they get tired so I had to learn to slow down because if I came in and immediately started pushing one joke after another, you can end up talking through the laughs and one has to learn to pace the jokes so as not to “step on the laughs “ as they say but you have to learn to slow down and then speed up and then slow down and continue changing like that so the people are given time to laugh. It all concerns ones sense of rhythm and the fact that the comic keeps the energy in the room alive.
A.R. Your ear is very good, you have the ear of a musician orchestrating your voice.
O.D Yes, because you have to listen to the type off laugh that includes the energy and the mood of the audience. Finally tell what was your favorite joke?
A.R. I liked the way you portrayed your parents when they expressed their concern about your becoming a stand-up comic. They spoke english with a Nigerian accent and your father had a low gruff voice.
O.D. My dad’s voice is much deeper than mine.
A.R But you brought yours down. and then I also liked the performance of the friend of yours “Mista Dray”.He obviously didn’t have the same amount of experience you had but he showed a lot of promise.
O.D. He drove three hours from Oshawa just to be with us last night. He has worked in Toronto and in Ottawa and will soon be performing as I am.
A.R. Thank-you so much for this interview and we hope you return soon to Ottawa, perhaps performing on the larger stage of a legitimate theatre like the GCTC or the Gladstone.
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