John Oluwole ADEkoje set his play, "Six Rounds/Six Lessons," in a boxing ring.
(MASON SAND)
STAGES
He's fighting to make sense of a murder
When John Oluwole ADEkoje was doing graduate work at Humboldt State University in California, a popular fellow African-American student was murdered . They lived in a small town with little crime; the news was shocking .
"I used to hang out with him sometimes, and poof! he was dead," says ADEkoje by phone from his home in Jamaica Plain. "I wanted to address that issue of dreams being shattered. He was going to be the first in his family to graduate from college."
ADEkoje (pronounced Ah-DEH-ko-jay) kept thinking about the murdered man, and finally he wrote a play inspired by him. Company One presents the world premiere of "Six Rounds/Six Lessons," directed by Lois Roach, at Boston Center for the Arts starting tonight .
Subtitled "A Tragic Comic Hip-Hop Concerto," the show features a mix of live hip-hop, gospel, R&B (with lyrics by him and music by Nathan Lee, the sound designer), and a DJ who, as ADEkoje says, "plays the soundtrack of the characters' lives."
ADEkoje says he uses the story of Ace, the character loosely based on the murder victim, as the central wheel around which several linked stories revolve. "It's about Ace and his coming back to seek redemption from his family," he says. " He wants to repair the cycle in his family, the disintegration that goes back to the slave days and keeps getting worse."
The play is set in a boxing ring, and Ace's father, brother, sister, wife, and mother move in and out of it. "The boxing ring," ADEkoje says, "is a metaphor for life -- the knockouts, the victories that occur."
After graduating from Humboldt State, ADEkoje moved to Boston, where he had friends. His play "Streethawker" won the Kennedy Center's American College Theater Festival Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award.
ADEkoje, who is Nigerian-American, was born in St. Paul, Minn., and from age 10 to 15 lived in Nigeria. The unusual capitalization of some letters in his last name is deliberate.
"I started capitalizing them because 'Ade' means king in the Yoruba language. When I was hanging with my father, he was talking about the village he grew up in. My grandfather was a leader in the village. So I decided to emphasize this, to remind myself and my brothers and sisters of what we come from."
Through March 31 at the Plaza Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts. Tickets: $15-$30 . 617-933-8600, BostonTheatreScene.com.
In Behan's shoes
Fresh from an Off-Broadway run, "Shay Duffin as Brendan Behan: Confessions of an Irish Rebel" plays at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway theater through March 31. Duffin wrote and stars in this one-man show, an homage to the poet-playwright-novelist Behan. Tonight will be Duffin's 6,894th performance of this award-winning play, now in its final world tour, and he'll do it wearing Behan's actual shoes -- given to him by the poet's widow, Beatrice, after she saw him perform it in Dublin in 1984. Tickets: $25-$35; discounts available. 866-811-4111, jtoffbroadway.com.'Rain' premieres
Cirque Éloize performs the Boston premiere of "Rain" Tuesday through March 18 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre . The show features dance and acrobatics. Jonas Woolverton , who grew up in Lexington, performs his specialty, the Cyr Wheel (a metal hoop in which the performer stands and spins like a dropped coin). Sponsored by CRASHarts and Catherine Foster can be reached at foster@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
