PORT ANGELES — Life is messy, absurd and beautiful.
Such is the message of “The Things Around Us,” a solo performance on Thursday by Ahamefule J. Oluo, an internationally known stand-up comic and musician who lives in rural Jefferson County.
Oluo will offer a kind of one-person symphony of sound and story at 7 p.m. at Field Arts & Events Hall, 201 W. Front St., Port Angeles — “about the biggest and smallest things in life,” as Oluo puts it.
The performer, who uses the pronouns they and them, interweaves comic stories from their life, clarinet and trumpet music, and rhythms from the cardboard shipping boxes arrayed on the stage.
“It’s a very fun, funny show,” Oluo said in an interview from their home on the Coyle peninsula south of Quilcene.
Tickets are at fieldhallevents.org with financial assistance available.
“Things” is part of Field Hall’s fall lineup, which also includes The Story People of Clallam County’s “Lost Hearts and Other Creepy Stories” on Oct. 23, blues singer Stephanie Anne Johnson on Oct. 25 and the Halloween Zombie Prom with Ant Bath and Lucky Brown & the S.G.s on Oct. 31.
Oluo has crafted “The Things Around Us” from a life in many art forms. A longtime Seattle player, they’ve made music with Macklemore, Wayne Horvitz, Hey Marseilles and the jazz ensemble Industrial Revelation. Along with their sister, author Ijeoma Oluo, they tell a personal story in the film “Thin Skin.”
The performer also has toured widely with their own shows “Susan” and “Now I’m Fine.”
The day after “The Things Around Us” unfolds in Port Angeles, Oluo till take the show to England for an Oct. 22 engagement at the Leeds Playhouse.
To warm up for that, “I might be using the metric system,” they quipped.
“Things” is Oluo’s tale of encounters with strangers, acquaintances and friends, all spiced and sweetened with music and dark humor. This is an evening created to draw each person in while reminding us of the grace in life, the performer said.
Oluo uses looping and effects pedals during the show, but they do not use a laptop, a synthesizer, a click track, a MIDI or any pre-recorded sounds.
Yet “The Things Around Us” is “a symphonic experience,” said Steve Raider-Ginsburg, Field Hall’s artistic director.
“Aham totally captivated me as a solo performer,” he said. “I was astonished with [the] fusion of music, storytelling and emotional resonance.”
Oluo hopes to bring together people young and older, of color and white, across the economic spectrum.
When that happens, they said, the room “just explodes with energy.”
Oluo hopes people will take a chance on something apart from the shows they’ve seen before.
“I do want to give people something,” they said: a time they enjoy, yes, but also an experience of growth, even catharsis.
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.
