Dublin Fringe Festival 2025: Octopus Children

Octopus Children by FELISPEAKS. Image by Pato Cassinoni

*****

Margins blur. Hard edges between disciplines, histories, traditions and identities dissolve. A full face projection speaks a mantra like monologue supported by evocative percussion. Soon giving way to a live, playful dance routine couching a realist monologue. In which a young, Nigerian Irish black girl at her first rural disco tries to hide her discomfort yet wants to fit in. Discomfort with herself, her skin, her sex and sexuality. In Octopus Children by FELISPEAKS, one woman’s journey through family, history, tradition and identity proves culturally specific and universally resonant. A feminist manifesto in which the modern, mythic and magical breathe into every moment. Steeped in Nigerian magic realism reminiscent of Wole Soyinka, and the visceral poetry of Brendan Behan, the end result is one of the most brilliant and vital productions of recent years.

It's not that Octopus Children breaks new ground. Rather it refashions and represents the familiar in fresh and invigorating ways. Narratively, the tale of a Nigerian Irish family in Longford caught between the tug of tradition and the pull of the modern, between the strain of the matriarchal and demands of the patriarchal, between curious youth and cautious age is a familiar one. Similarly, its teenage rites of passage of a young woman struggling to find herself, finding in writing something that allows her reveal her softer colours is as old as the 1980s. Culminating in the need to leave a confining community for the wild discovery of the city. It's all been said and done before. But rarely with such beauty, power and artistry. The border between language and sound dissolving in hypnotic percussions by Tommy Grooves ranging from jazz to tribal. Words, and the space between words, vibrant with energy and meaning. If some words struggle for clarity, their power is still undeniable.

Octopus Children by FELISPEAKS. Image by Pato Cassinoni

A hybrid of realism and magic realism, theatrically FELISPEAKS' blend of spoken word poetry, dance, musical styles from gospel to hip hop, and percussive brilliance is only half the story. Technical brilliance in Jack Phelan’s set and AV, Sarah Jane Shiels lights, Therese McKeone’s costuming and Anna Mullarkey’s irresistible compositions help fashion worlds that interweave and penetrate in a visual and audial tapestry. FELISPEAKS, Tishé Fatunbi, Tierra Porter, Favour Odusola, Tobi Omoteso, Tommy Salami and Soffiyah Adewoyin each turning in vivid and energised performances. Directors Oonagh Murphy & Esosa Ighodaro giving a masterclass in pace and precision, right down to the most insignificant details. A gourd of water, mimicked gestures of father and son, the meal defiantly uneaten at the family table all brim with vibrancy and energy. Interlinked scenes playing out like vignettes or stanzas. Images reclaiming feminine archetypes. A Medusa like crone, a Christian mother and a rebellious virginal daughter fusing myth, tradition and modernity. Magic, memory and new possibilities found in the myth, metaphor and symbolism of the octopus. By the time you’ve journeyed through poetry recitals, parental showdowns, vibrant dance and the cold pavement of violence you’ve arrived somewhere different to the place from which you started.

Octopus Children by FELISPEAKS. Image by Pato Cassinoni

A treasure throve of riches, Octopus Children spills over with theatrical jewels and thematic gems. There is a proud pantheon of black women poets whose works not only interrogate their times but often reshape them and those who follow. Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovani, Morgan Parker to name but a few. Women who took the pains of their past to fashion a present opening out into new, possible futures. As black poet June Jordan remarked;

I understand the comfortable temptation of the dead:

I turn my back against the grave

and kiss again the risk of what I have

instead.

To that elite honours role scribe the name FELISPEAKS. Octopus Children reminding us we are all wholly water. That we are all holy water. Whatever your gaze, Octopus Children is Holy Theatre whose incantations speak to an unlikely us of race, colours, sexes and creeds striving for unity and continuity. Vital, vibrant, visceral, Octopus Children is urgent and powerful theatre that’s infinitely enjoyable. Not to be missed.

Octopus Children by FELIXSPEAKS, presented by THISISPOPBABY, runs as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2025 at Project Arts Centre until September 14.

For more information visit Dublin Fringe Festival 2025