Lambert’s new play is not merely a dramatic performance; it is a cultural reawakening. Set in the precolonial kingdom of Ameke, the story unfolds around the shocking assassination of Eze Kalu Ibi, a revered monarch whose death plunges the kingdom into suspicion and chaos. The tragedy exposes the moral fractures within Ameke’s ruling council, and through it, Lambert crafts a profound allegory of Africa’s modern struggle with corruption and conscience.
At the heart of the narrative stands Akaike, a scheming elder whose hunger for influence leads to the unjust condemnation of Dike Ugwuala, a proud nobleman falsely accused of regicide. Dike’s despair and eventual suicide become a haunting symbol of the human toll of deceit. “The house is now on fire. There is no hiding place for the rat anymore,” Akaike proclaims — a line that echoes through the drama like a moral verdict on society’s decay.
Yet, amid the darkness, the women of Ameke emerge as the play’s moral compass. Ogonna, the widowed queen, turns to ancestral spirits for justice, while Ugonma, Akaike’s wife, becomes the embodiment of truth and courage. In one of the play’s most gripping moments, Ugonma confronts her husband with piercing honesty: “Akaike! Akaike! So, you killed my father?” Her revelation not only redeems the kingdom but also restores faith in the enduring African wisdom that truth, though delayed, always rises with the dawn.
Lambert’s writing brims with traditional idioms and symbolic depth. Proverbs such as “The widow’s cat would never leave the rat that stole her fish” and “When a child cries and points in one direction, if the father is not there, the mother must be” anchor the play in the cadence of African oral tradition.
The production’s structure, steeped in ritual and lyricism, guides the audience toward a metaphorical dawn — the triumph of moral clarity over falsehood. Critics have already drawn comparisons to Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame and Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, yet Lambert’s voice is distinct: philosophical, impassioned, and deeply spiritual.
To Lambert, Wait Until Dawn is more than theatre; it is a manifesto of cultural renewal. “The gods may wait, the people may suffer, but justice never sleeps,” he declares. Through this work, he reclaims the African stage not only as a space for art but as a sanctuary for truth — and a call for the continent’s moral and spiritual restoration.