Black Comedy

Ese Atawo clearly remembers the night she flew into Toronto, after leaving her home in Nigeria. “I was only five years old, and at the time, Nigeria didn’t have consistent electricity. So, as the plane was coming down, all I could see were lights, just lights everywhere. I was like, what the heck is this?” 

Unbeknownst to little Ese, 30 years later, she would be preparing herself to step into the bright lights of the 20th Vancouver International Improv Festival, as the director of a comedy show performed solely by people of colour.

Even at the age of five, Atawo was aware of being made to feel different from the other kids. “I remember being in ESL and being made fun of because of my accent. I never really knew what it meant when people made fun of me, but I just knew it didn’t feel right, or feel natural.”

As an extrovert with a sharp sense of humour, Atawo felt drawn to acting, but didn’t see many examples of successful black actors to relate to. “Growing up, you’d rarely see people of colour, besides maybe Denzel, Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett. In comedy there was The Cosby Show, In Living Colour and Martin Lawrence, but that was about it.” She peers over the top of her glasses and leans in. “When I told my parents that I wanted to be an actor, they were like, you’ll never make it – you’re not white,” she says, theatrically rolling her eyes. “I always new it was a battle to begin with, but I just accepted it and did it anyway!”  

Atawo’s journey as an performer led her to Second City, the famous improv training facility in Toronto that produced stars like Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Martin Short and Mike Myers. “Someone had told me that improv helps with auditions. I studied at Second City just to help me with my acting. I didn’t ever really want to peruse anything in comedy; acting was my thing.”

It was at Second City that Atawo found a passion for improvised comedy and a mentor by the name of Natasha Boomer. “I still think about her to this day. She said “You’re a woman and you’re a woman of colour – no one’s going to listen to you, so you have to take what’s yours and be aggressive and push through it.” It was hard to hear it coming from a white woman, but she was right.”

Thankfully, Atawo rose to the challenge. “Did I find it difficult? No, not really. I’m Nigerian. One of the greatest things about being Nigerian is that we’re so competitive. If we like something, we ask ourselves could we do it better? If the answer is yes, we have to go out there and prove it. For me personally, I felt that race wasn’t the biggest hurdle to get over. It was gender. Being a woman in comedy – that was the real struggle.”

In 2012, Atawo moved to Vancouver and joined the cast of Instant Theatre and two all-female comedy troupes, Your Moms and Nasty Women. In 2017, the cast of Nasty Women performed in an improv festival in New York City, where Atawo was invited to guest on a show performed by an all black cast. “It was amazing, the experience was amazing. The one thing, because it was New York and because it was America, the content of our show was very race-heavy. I didn’t know how to play with it. At the end of the day, this is improv – I want to talk about real subjects, but let’s not forget that it’s supposed to be comedy.”

In 2018, Atawo was approached by Alistair Cook, the director of the Vancouver International Improv Festival, and asked to be in The Improvisers, a show performed exclusively by people of colour. This year, she has been invited to direct that show, but she wants to avoid it being heavy. 

“Vancouver isn’t woke enough yet to sit there and hear “Everybody’s racist and this is why!” And I don’t want it to be a heavy, laugh because you feel forced to laugh kind of show. I want the audience’s laughter to be genuine and natural, and not because they feel guilty. I have a lot of Caucasian friends and white guilt is a real thing. I don’t want people to feel uncomfortable. But most importantly, I don’t want to be seen as a charity case. We want to show that people of colour are as funny or funnier than anyone else. It doesn’t have anything to do with our race or our background – we’re funny, and that’s it. She’s funny for a black girl. I don’t ever want to hear that.”

The Improvisers can be seen on Thursday, October 11, at the Vancouver International Improv Festival on Granville Island.