There are two giants associated with Fela!, the 2009 musical reaching us now in a touring production that features the original Broadway lead. One, of course, is Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the Nigerian musician who pioneered Afrobeat and then used it to incite an insanely courageous protest against his nation’s oil-fed tyrants. The other is Bill T. Jones, Fela!‘s coauthor, director, and choreographer. Having already enjoyed a long career in modern dance, Jones came late to theater. And yet the two musicals he’s helped create so far—this one and Spring Awakening—establish him as a Jerome Robbins for our times. In Spring Awakening Jones used dance to lay bare late-Habsburg repression and the psychic distortions it caused; here he employs the same medium to embody the same dynamic—but in the physical language of an entirely different culture. It’s breathtaking.
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Through 4/15: Tue-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 7:30 PM, Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph, 800-775-2000, broadwayinchicago.com, $25-$90
