IsquithRNowI_mFine

When comedian, singer, storyteller Ahamefule Oluo walked across the stage to collect two images of his mouth, a soft bowed cello notified the audience that they were about to redefine being “fine”. On December 4, 2014, Oluo shared these two images with Seattle’s Moore Theatre. One, an image of healthy lips used for storytelling, name making and trumpet playing. The other, “generally mouth shaped, but without the part that opens”. Every morning for a month, Oluo would painfully cut across this layer of excess protein, residue from recovery from a rare autoimmune disease. Watching Oluo cut across the paper image of black, scabbed-over lips with cuticle scissors we ask, “how are you okay?”

Over the course of this pop-opera, we watch a rotation of darkly intimate comedy and instrumentation . At the start, Oluo recounts lighter-fare trials like being singled out on a bus for being the unnoticeable high schooler, and extracting chewing gum from his “ass hair”.  Each time we encounter a challenge with Oluo, the orchestral strings lower us through discomfort and pity. The vocalists and larger brass band prop us up as Oluo works to “let his name not be forgotten”. Oluo shares vignettes of young fatherhood, short marriage, rapid divorce, and the death of his estranged and disappointed Nigerian father. Even when an autoimmune disorder physically pulls him apart, causing rapid deterioration of the skin, Oluo finds a way to be fine. “Inspired” is not how I thought I’d feel when hearing the story of a man playing a broken organ in a closet. But there I was, inspired.

Ahamefule Oluo asks audience members to understand that Now I’m Fine is, “about finding a way to feel okay, when you know that things are very much not okay”. This show celebrates finding what keeps you sane even as everything you know falls apart. When blistered and raw, Oluo’s ability to find music and humor is a testament to human resolve and resiliency. One hour and fifty-one minutes with Oluo inspires you to consider what keeps you going, and the ways in which you are still okay.