On Broadway, Actresses Find Depth in Felas Women This is the short list of how the women of "Fela!," the Broadway musical about the Nigerian Afrobeat musician and political agitator, do not see their characters: victims, go-go dancers, sex objects. The nine women in tight outfits, elaborate hairdos and painted faces represent the 27 real-life co-wives of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who married them collectively in what he considered a personal and political gesture as he fought against Nigeria's corrupt authoritarian regime and defended traditional African culture. The women have no individual lines. In any other show they would be considered part of the chorus. Yet they maintain a constant, magnetic stage presence, dancing and singing at Fela's nightclub, the Shrine, in the Lagos of the late "70s. While their stories are not told, their characters have been thoroughly studied and embodied by the performers, who see them as an integral part of the complex and contradictory tale of the man who inspired the musical. "The relationship is more intricate than just a bunch of passive women who let a man do whatever he wanted," Aimee Graham Wodobode, a dancer who plays a wife named Sewaa, said during a recent interview with five of the wives, called queens, at a Midtown restaurant. They believed in his mission and were ready to die for him. Iris Wilson, whose character, Najite, met Fela when she 14 and described him as a combination father, mother and comrade in the fight for African democracy, said, "These were women who stood for something, who spoke out with Fela against the corrupt African government." Abena Koomson, whose character, Funmi, a former dancer, is pregnant in the musical and hangs back with the band, said: "Fela could not have done what he did by himself. Afrobeat music really takes a community. What it requires is polyrhythm, many different sounds. In many ways that's a metaphor for community, for the call and response of African music. The queens are that sound, that affirmation. Fela's collective marriage in 1978 to the women - many of whom had been teenagers when they first came to the Shrine and then his home to escape their families or find personal fulfillment - takes only a few minutes onstage. Fela says to the assembled women, "Will you marry me?," and they respond, "Yeah, yeah." What the audience might not know is that the marriage - often described in prurient terms by the news media over the years - had been publicly described by Fela as a gesture of political solidarity and emotional support for his women after a devastating 1977 raid on his compound in Lagos, called Kalakuta. One thousand soldiers swarmed Kalakuta, beating Fela and raping and viciously abusing some of the women - an episode depicted vividly onstage. Fela's 77-year-old mother, Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, herself a political counterforce to Nigeria's authoritarian regime, died the following year from injuries suffered after the soldiers threw her out a window. Within the musical's kinetic framework the queens" flourishes are subtle. "One slaps his hand away, one is like his pet, another does not look at him," said Bill T. Jones, the show's director and choreographer. The audience has to look closely. None of them like Fela's African-American lover, Sandra Isadore (played by Saycon Sengbloh), so they maintain a physical distance from her. And even though the performers crowd the theater's aisles, Mr. Jones instructed them not to "bat your eyes or wiggle your hips at the audience." Ms. Wodobode, whose character is from Ghana, said: "If you look at our faces and attitudes during the play, it's not a "look at me." We are not grinning and gyrating and trying to please. We are there to create a community, to make a statement, to help create music. Ms. Wilson said one of Fela's friends helped develop her character. He said my role in the play is to always be attending to Fela because that is what she did, so you see me lighting his cigarettes, giving him his saxophone, wiping his brow. Afi McClendon, who plays Ihase, the youngest-looking, smallest queen, said she saw the women as rebels. "In this day and age, feminine energy is so understated," Ms. McClendon said as she got into her makeup for a show. They were women who had the courage to define themselves as individuals in a society that was so corrupt and did not allow them to be the individuals that they were. Correction: December 18, 2009 Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about the actresses in the Broadway musical "Fela!" who portray wives of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti referred incorrectly to their identification on stage. The wives" names are in fact mentioned at one point.