His plays have continuously tackled societal issues such as corruption, bad leadership and even divorce and this time around, Uncle Ebo Whyte and his Roverman Productions took on the Christian faith with his latest play, God, You’re Fired!.
The play, which drew a large audience to the National Theatre for the first showing at 4 p.m. tells the story of a struggling pastor who is frustrated at the daily disrespect from his wife who is tired of being with a man who cannot take care of her demands.
While dealing with his wife’s insubordination, the pastor, played by Michael Alito Sasu, also has to deal with his struggling church which has just a membership of three, after many years of its establishment.
Having had enough of the suffering, he decides to remove his collar and end the frustrations of faithfully serving a God who cannot even answer the prayers of His own children. But the decision to fire God for not answering his prayers is the turning point of his life.
To prove that he is still God and the circumstances of life don’t change His being, he gives the pastor the rare chance of being God and the opportunity to answer all the prayers of his loyal servants.
Drunk with the power to play God, the pastor happily answers all the prayers of his church members without considering the consequences.
But while it is expected that the instant results to one’s prayer will bring happiness, it rather spells doom for them and the community gets chaos with deaths and accidents. The deaths and accidents were the answers to the prayer requests of a coffin maker and auto mechanic.
God, You’re Fired! is a humour-laden play which had patrons in stitches with the various characters giving good interpretations of their roles.
However, most importantly, the play asks very relevant questions that shake the foundation of the faith of many Christians when they face trials.
Questions like “where is God when bad things are happening to us?” “Why has God allowed this to happen to me or to a dear one?”, Does God hear us when we pray and does He even care about our bad situations?” all come up for the the audience.
Some of the vital lessons learnt from God, You’re Fired! was that, prayer is not a “shopping list” but submission to God’s word.
Again, irrespective of the worst situations faithful Christians find themselves in, God doesn’t need to prove Himself as all powerful by changing their situations since sometimes, the application of common sense is the solution and not “noisy” prayers.
God, You’re Fired! is the last play by Roverman Productions before the Festival of Plays takes place in the yuletide.