Domaine : Lettres Langues et Arts

Etablissement : Anglais
____________________________________________________________________

SYLLABUS DE COURS

Intitulé du parcours : Licence Fondamentale…

Semestre d’évolution : 4 (Mousson 2)

Code et intitulé de l’enseignement : ANG 220 : Théâtre Moderne Africain

Nombre de crédits : 3

Jour, horaire et salle de l’enseignement : à déterminer selon l’emploi du temps de

chaque enseignant

Enseignant responsable de l’UE : (nom, prénoms, grade académique, spécialité, contacts)

Ayele Fafavi d'Almeida Enseignant
Lare Damlegue
Kangni Adama
Seli Azasu
Eyanawa Tcheki
Kangnivi Kodjovi
Solim Tchiou
Abibou Akala
Kpedzroku
kokouvi Mawule d'Almeida

Disponibilité pour recevoir les étudiants (jours, heures, lieu) : à déterminer par chaque
enseignant

Public cible : Cette UE s’adresse aux étudiants inscrits en licence fondamentale au

département d’Anglais

Prérequis : Pour suivre cet enseignement, vous devez :

- Avoir suivi ANG103

UE d’approfondissement
 Objectifs d’enseignement

- Objectif général : Cette UE vise à (intention globale de l’enseignant)

Donner aux étudiants un aperçu littéraire sur l'origine, la nature et le développement du
théâtre moderne africain.

- Objectifs spécifiques : A la fin de l’UE, les étudiants seront capables de :

À la fin du cours, les étudiants devraient être capables de :

- Expliquer l'influence de la tradition orale sur le développement du théâtre moderne

africain ;
- Analyser les variétés régionales : la contribution majeure des dramaturges africains ;
- Décrire les contributions des dramaturges modernes Africains à la naissance et au
développement du théâtre moderne africain ;
- Énumérer les tendances critiques du théâtre moderne avec les principaux aspects
théoriques du post-colonialisme, du marxisme, du féminisme, etc.

Langue d’enseignement : Anglais

Bref descriptif de l’enseignement : (Dire succinctement le contenu de l’enseignement : Max

10 lignes)

Ce cours est conçu pour les étudiants des semestres 3 et 4 (niveau de licence, deuxième année).
Il présente à l'étudiant une analyse textuelle et critique du théâtre africain postcolonial : sa forme
indigène et son développement dans l'art moderne, les influences du colonialisme sur celui-ci,
sa domestication (adaptation et transposition des pièces) et les différentes orientations critiques
adoptées par les dramaturges africains. Quelques exemples des pièces théâtrales modernes sont
pris pour illustrer les points développés. Parmi les dramaturges sélectionnées se trouvent entre
autres Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Zakes Mda
(Afrique du Sud), Efua T. Sutherland, Femi Osofisan (Nigeria), John Ruganda (Uganda).

Organisation de l’enseignement (objectifs, contenu /activités, méthodes

d’enseignement/apprentissage)

Séance Contenu et activités Méthodes Matériel/

Objectifs N° d’enseignement/apprentissage d’enseignement/ Support
Apprentissage pédagogique
Expliquer le 1 Definition and Background to Lecture et Support de
contexte de African drama of oral expression explication cours, Livres
l’émergence du critiques et
articles

2
théâtre moderne
Africain
Décrire le 2 Hybridism in modern African Lecture et Support de
phénomène Drama explication cours, Livres
d’hybridisme critiques et
dans le théâtre articles
moderne africain
Analyser les 3 Time sequences in African drama Lecture, Support de
différentes discussion de cours, Livres
séquences de groupe et critiques et
temps et leurs restitution articles
implications dans
le développement
du théâtre africain
Enumérer les 4 Modern African Drama and Its Lecture et Support de
caractéristiques Audience explications suivi cours, Livres
du théâtre écrit et de discussion critiques et
son contexte articles
historique et
politique
Décrire les 5 Introduction to some major Lecture et Support de
majeurs African playwrights and their explications suivies cours, Livres
dramaturges contribution to the emergence of de discussion critiques et
africains et leurs modern African drama articles
contributions à
l’émergence du
théâtre moderne
africain
Interpréter les 6 Mid-terms Assessment/Some Lecture, analyses et Support de
enjeux du genre Critical Orientations commentaires cours, Livres
dans le théâtre critiques et
moderne africain articles
Examiner les 7 Case study of play 1 continued: Exposés et débats Support de
éléments narratifs Plot, Setting, Characters cours, Livres
critique de la critiques,
première pièce : articles, pièces
biographie de de théâtre
l’auteur, contexte
socio-politique,
décor et trame du
récit
Expliquer les 8 Critical study of play 1continued: Exposés et débats Support de
fonctions Language and Style analysis cours, Livres

3
littéraires des critiques et
personnages articles
Etudier les 9 Critical analysis of play 1 Exposés et débats Support de
thèmes et les Continued: Thematic Exploration cours, Livres
styles langagiers critiques et
de la première articles, pièces
pièce de théâtre
Analyser la 10 Critical approach of play 2: Plot, Exposés et débats Support de
biographie de Setting, Characters cours, Livres
l’auteur, le(s) critiques et
contexte(s) socio- articles, pièces
politique, le décor de théâtre
et la trame du
récit dans la
deuxième pièce
Etudier les 11 Exposés et débats Support de
fonctions cours, Livres
littéraires, socio- Critical study of play 2 critiques et
culturelles et Continued: Language, Style and articles, pièces
politiques des Themes analysis de théâtre
personnages,
Evaluer l’atteinte 12 General Revision + Assessment Exposés et débats Support de
des objectifs chez cours, Livres
les étudiants par critiques et
un test écrit. articles, pièces
de théâtre

Evaluation
- Contrôle continu : (préciser les types d’activités d’évaluation : DST/Exposé, Devoir
de maison, compte rendu de lecture, etc. et préciser le poids dans la validation de l’UE :
40% ? 50% ?)

- Examen final : (préciser le type d’activité d’évaluation : Examen écrit, examen

oral, travail pratique, travail de recherche, de synthèse, etc. et préciser le poids dans la
validation de l’UE : 60% ? 50% ?)

Bibliographie

. Lectures obligatoires (1 ou 2 ouvrages ou articles obligatoires)

Les pièces de théâtre se choisiront à chaque semestre.

4
NB : pour cette année scolaire 2020-2021 les œuvres retenues au programme sont :
- Frank Ogodo Ogbeche, Harvest of Corruption. Abuja: Almaz Books Limited. 1997.
- Ola Rotimi. Our Husband has Gone Mad Again. Ibadan: Oxford University Press.
1977.
-
. Autres documents

1. Aidoo, Ama Ata. The Dilemma of a Ghost. London: Longman. 1965.

2. --------------- Anowa. London: Longman. 1970.
3. Amankulor, J. Ndukaku, 1993. “English-Language Drama and Theatre”. In Oyekan
Owomoyela (ed.) A History of Twentieth Century African Literatures. Nebraska:
University of Nebraska Press. 138-172.
4. - Asare, Yaw, 2006. Ananse in the Land of Idiots. Accra: Study Drama Foundation.
5. Banham, Martin, ed., 2004. A History of Theatre in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
6. - Damlegue Lare, “Designations and Functions of Rituals, Festivals and Drama in the
African Social Context: a Contribution to the Nomenclature Debate in African
Literature”. In Particip’Action Revue Interafricaine de Littérature, Linguistique et
Philosophie. Revue semestrielle. Volume 6, N°2 – juillet 2013 (Togo). PP. 35- 51.
ISSN 2071 – 1964.
7. Etherton, Michael, 1983. The Development of Drama in Africa. London: Hutchinson.
8. Falola, Toyin, 2009. Emerging Perspectives on Femi Osofisan. Trenton: Africa World
Press.
9. Finnegan, Ruth, 2012. Oral Literature in Africa. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Web.
10. Jeyifo, Biodun, 2002. Modern African Drama, a Norton Critical Edition. New York:
Norton and Company.
11. Losambe, Lokangaka and Devi Sarinjeive, eds., 2001. Precolonial and Post-colonial
Drama and Theatre in Africa. Trenton: Africa World Press.
12. Mda, Zakes, 2004. And the Girls in their Sunday Dresses. Trenton: Africa World Press.
13. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o, 1963. The Black Hermit. London: Heinemann.
14. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o and Micere Githae Mugo, 1973. The Trial of Dedan Kimathi.
London: Heinemann.
15. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o and Ngugi wa Mirii, 1982. I Will Marry When I Want. London:
Heinemann.
16. -----------------------2009. Something Torn and New, An African Renaissance. New
York: Basic Civitas Books.
17. ----------------------- 1987. Decolonizing the Mind, the Politics of Language in African
Literature. London: James Currey.
18. Nwahunanya, Chinyere, 2012. Literary Criticism, Critical Theory and Post Colonial
African Literature. Bethesda: Arbi Press.
19. Olaniyan, Tejumola and Ato Quayson, eds., 2007/2013. African Literature: an
Anthology of Criticism and Theory. New York: Blackwell Publishing.
20. Osofisan, Femi, 2001. The Nostalgic Drum: Essays on Literature, Drama and Culture.
Trenton: Africa World Press.
21. Rotimi, Ola, ed., 2001. Issues in African Theatres. Ile-Ife: HP Humanities Publishers.
22. --------------- 1968. The Gods Are Not to Blame. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.
23. ---------------- 1966. Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

5
24. --------------------, 1991. African Drama Literature: To Be or to Become, Inaugural
Lecture. Port Hartcourt: University of Port Harcourt Inaugural Lecture Series. No 11.
25. Rubin, Don, Ousmane Diakhate and Hansel Ndumbe Eyoh, eds., The World
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre. New York: Routledge. 25-29.
26. - Ruganda, John, 1973/2005. Black Mamba. Makerere: East African Educational
Publishers.
27. Soyinka, Wole, 1963: The Lion and the Jewel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
28. ----------------- 1973. The Jero Plays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29. ----------------- 1973. Camwood on the Leaves. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
30. ------------------ 1988. “Theatre in Traditional Cultures: Survival Patterns”. In Biodun
Jeyfo, ed., 2002. Modern African Drama, a Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton
and Company. 421-433.
31. ---------------- 1988. Art, Dialogue and Outrage, Essays on Literature and Culture. New
York: Pantheon Books.
32. Sutherland, Efua T. The Marriage of Anansewa. London: Longman, 1977.
33. ---------------------- Edufa. London: Longman, 1967
34. Rotimi, Ola, 1991. African Drama Literature: To Be or to Become? University of Port
Harcourt Inaugural Lecture Series, N. 11. 1991. 26
Traore, Bakary, 1972. Black African Theatre and Its Social Function. Translated by
Dapo

6
Week 1: Chapter One: Definition and Background

Specific objectives

- Define drama
- Tell the relationship between drama and culture
- Explain how oral narratives can be classified a drama in African context

Development

What is Theatre and Drama?

Theatre and drama are delicate terms because of their multiple meanings. For example,
according to The Oxford Companion to the English Language, the term theatre comes from the
Latin ‘theatrum’, Greek ‘theatron’ from ‘theatshai’, meaning to behold. It is a place where
drama is performed. The term, like stage, is metonymically is extended to drama itself, and is
regarded as presentation rather than text.

This clarification implies that the meaning of the term theatre was broadened to mean drama.
As a result, drama is conceived as a logical extension of theatre.

The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms states: “as a form of literature, drama has been
studied for centuries – ‘a poem written for representation’ (Ben Johnson). In other words, it has
been judged primarily as a poem, and all that peculiarly belongs to the stage – acting,
production, scenery, effects – have been subsumed under the vague term ‘representation’. The
alternative is to invert that position, and stress the representation before the poem. In the theatre,
the poet’s art is only one among many, and it is not an essential one: indeed, words at all are
not essential. In Greek the term meant simply to act or perform, and the definition is still valid;
all others are derivative (Childs and Fowler 2006: 63).

Aristotle in his Poetics defines drama as the imitation of action and he lists six parts which are
indispensable to it: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle and melody. Aristotle thus sees
drama as representation and goes on to say: “representation is natural to human beings from
childhood. They differ from the other animals in this: man tends most towards representation

7
and learns his first lessons through representation. Also, everyone delights in representation.
An indication of this is what happens in fact: we delight is looking at the most detailed images
of things which in themselves we see with pain” (Aristotle Poetics 1, 14447a in Norton
Anthology of Criticism and Theory).

Drama and Cultural Performance

There is an intrinsic relationship between drama and cultural performance. Every theory of the
origins of drama, either in Ancient Greece or in African early civilizations associate drama to
cultural performances, religious ceremonies, rituals and myths. Drama is thus inherent to
peoples’ cultures, traditions and religious life. Mzo Sirayi asserts:

I approached several elders who were and are still revered and respected for their knowledge of
cultural performances and history… The common frequently repeated notion is that precolonial
theatre has existed for as long as Africans have been in Africa. It is as old as the history of
African people (Sirayi 2012: 5-6). He gives among other examples the wedding ceremony
performance among the Ndebele, the Xhosa and the Zulu where ceremonies are painted with
dances, chanting, and scenery demonstrations.

In Togolese context, traditional festivals which are celebrated in every regional community
contain dramatic elements in several ways: dance, music, acrobatic demonstrations,
masquerades, invocation of the supernatural, audience, actors, etc., are elements that sustain
dramatic aspect of these performances.

1. Background to African Anglophone Drama: an Overview

If by theatre one means a performance in an appointed place with a playing audience and paid
actors, with scenery, costumes and make-up, well-rehearsed and adequately publicized, it can
justifiably be said that drama has always existed in Africa. Myths, legends, epic poems and
stories correspond in Black Africa to the peak of African wisdom. Theatre finds its subject
matter in mythology, history and customs. Bakary Traoré contends that the first manifestations
of Negro-African theatre are in religious and cosmic ceremonies. The Negro-African theatre
could not escape the religious imperative which dominates every institution in Black Africa.
Among the Bambara, Mousso Koroni, the first created female, rebelling against her husband,
is the central figure of the performances which took place after harvesting. In Dahomey and
Nigeria, the cult devoted to the orishas and the voodoo is an occasion for productions where

8
song and dance mingle in order to relive and imitate the passions, wars, and noble achievements
of the ancestors.

These ritual acts are at the same time ritual songs and recitals in which certain achievements
related to the family, tribe or the divinity are recounted. Pierre Verger speaking from the
perspective of Yoruba rituals and recitals, compares this with the medieval epic poem. These
monologues, recited with great feeling by the actors and accompanied by the griots with
appropriate gestures and mimes already verge on the theatre properly speaking (Verger 1982).
Verger also sees in these ceremonies the seeds of drama and considers the traditional priests as
stage directors and the griots as the leaders of the orchestra. In the same way, myths which try
to explain the origins of man, the creation of the world, the essence of life, are presented during
the merry evenings of social intercourse as mimed legend, with guitar accompaniment, as in
the case of Fulbe of Senegal. Some popular legends draw the crowd around the griot actor, a
spectacle which generally takes place either in the village public square or in the compound of
a family chief of the village. In the middle of the large central area, a circle dimly lit by a wood-
fire is formed around the story-teller. A guitar, which the actor plays all through the recital,
sustains the action. And the guitarist from time to time stops playing only to sketch a few dance
steps or mimic a gesture.

1.1. Oral Narratives in Performance

Oral narratives are piece and parcel of African cultural life. In every traditional setting, there
are various ways by which the strength of human perception, intellect, knowledge and potentials
for logical reasoning are tested. Story telling have always integrated various components of
dramatic flavor: archetypes, myths, legends, folktales, proverbs, riddles and jokes. These oral
elements enjoy a long tradition of oral performance in African traditional setting, by either
talented personae like griots, praise-singers in royal compounds or elders during initiation
ceremonies, or during evening after work recreational sessions. The components of dramatic
performance are there: the narrator (s) playing the role of actors, the audience, the stage, the
setting usually in a village square. The stories have plot, characters and setting. But what attracts
our attention as African drama scholars is the fact that these oral narratives follow a certain
theatrical convention of performance. The story or tale proper may suffer passive reception but
the introduction techniques has a drama performance outfit of the beginning of a play:

i. Calling the audience’s attention

ii. Arousing the interest of the audience

9
 iii. Making a formal declaration of the beginning of a story session
iv. Making some language exercise or display.

During performance, the storyteller takes bodily postures, mime his character’s voice or actions,
create emotional tension in the receptive audience by overemphasizing tragic or comic episodes
of the story and finally achieves catharsis when spectators purge their emotions. All these
elements lend dramatic tone to the African oral narratives.

1.2. Ritual Drama

The term refers to what are seen as the traditional origins of African theatre in ritual
performances which co-exist today with contemporary drama. But there is a debate over it,
because other scholars claim that African theatre is of colonial origin. The advocates of
ritual drama assert that the priest plays the role of the actor, the people witnessing the ritual
the spectators. The ritual dance is the performance itself.

1.3. Festival Drama

This term is suggested by the Nigerian critic Oyin Ogunba to describe the traditional African
performance modes which occur at traditional festivals. Every tribe or ethnic group in
Africa celebrates a traditional festival of its cultural environment. During these festivals,
there is abundance display of song and dance, rhythmically performed in musical
accompaniment of drums, flutes, guitar, gong, etc. Masquerades and acrobatic dances are
displayed in a dramatic manner to exhibit by so doings the exploits of the heroes of the
tribes. These episodes are colorful and rich in dramatic styles. These are also often moments
of emotional tension and the recollection of old memories of the gathering of the tribe, a
link of common ancestry. The theorists of African drama of cultural expression argue in
favour of the acknowledgement of African festival as a rich dramatic expression.

One may wonder if all that constitutes a theatrical performance as we understand the term today.
Insofar as most myths and legends were acted, we can deduce that the seeds of theatre were
present in Africa as in ancient Greece. Where one needs to clear doubts is that with the
introduction of European education in African drama moves progressively from its
fundamentally religious and ritual nature to take an aesthetic form. Drama, hitherto grounded
in the mythical world of the African cosmos needs to be demystified in order to serve a larger

10
social purpose: that of entertainment, relaxation, social education and mass sensitization. Art
cannot be dissociated from the society, and drama is there to serve the fundamental recreative
needs of the people.

Not only myths, legends, and stories, but also customs, manners and the observation of day-to-
day events have been a source of inspiration for satirical comedy and the comedy of manners
in which the Mandingo theatre has excelled. The plays are generally very simple: they consist
of dialogues acted to the accompaniment of songs and dances to which a chorus made up of the
audience lends its voice. The plot is also simple: it may be the story of the kola merchant who
has fallen in love with a coquettish woman who exploits him, or that of the hunter who returns
with an empty bag from a day’s hunting; the belief in the latter case being that the fault lays
with the wife who must have been unfaithful. The hunter begins to watch his wife and ends up
catching her in the act. Theft is another recurrent theme: for example, the popular theme in
Senegal of two young blind men caught red-handed in a millet field. This comedy is close in
many respects to Greek comedy, notably that of Athens, in its alternation of dialogue and
chorus. While lacking the depth or more especially the variety of Aristophanes’ plays (a Greek
comic playwright -450-386 BC), its down – to- earth approach and its bantering spirit are
representative of the mass of the people.

With this in mind, let us note also a genre peculiar to the Negro-African theatre: the recitative,
which is the recounting of the valorous deeds of a family’s forebears and the eulogistic dramas
in which the sagacity of the griots come into play in the reconciliation of two warring families
or clans. There are actors who specialize in this genre. Among the Bobos there are organized
theatrical troupes with poets, minstrels and mountbanks, who travel about the country. The
leader is generally a talented historian at the head of a troupe consisting of both men and
women. The performance takes place at night before a large and attentive audience. The eulogy
is declaimed by the leader and the rest of the troupe replies in song.

Exercises

1. Explain what drama is and give examples of dramatic performances in Africa.

2. Who is Aristotle? What is his definition of drama?
3. Give examples of festivals and rituals in your country.
4. Describe the most important festival or ritual in your culture, and say how far it can be
called dramatic performance.

11
 5. Describe the different sequences of oral narratives and say how they are similar to
dramatic performance.

Week 2: Chapter Two: Hybridism in Modern African Drama

Specific objectives
- Explain hybridism and interculturalism in the context of African drama
- Enumerate the different time sequences in the development of African drama

Development
2. Hybridism and Interculturalism
2.1. Hybridism
Hybridism refers to the quality of something which results from the combination of different
elements to form a new element. It is a heterogeneous byproduct. In the context of African
drama and theatre, hybridism compels great attention. Modern African literature and art form
are hybrid. They combine the oral tradition elements which were predominantly in the cultural
lore of traditional Africa before the advent of modern school form and literacy. Since then, oral
tradition elements: myth, legend, folktales, proverbs, songs, etc. have been used as raw
materials in the manufacturing of modern African literature in its written form. Drama being
one literary genre, actively uses these elements of oral tradition to create storyline, shape ideas,
model plot and adapt setting to match the originality of African cultural thought, and philosophy
of life.
However, modern African drama uses European literary forms and traditions to create written
literature and stage performance. Example of plays with elements of oral tradition like myth,
legends, folktales, proverbs, songs, riddles, rituals include Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to
Blame, Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests, Kongi’s Harvest, The Strong Breed, Femi
Osofisan’s No More the Wasted Breed, Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa, Efua T. Sutherland’s The
Marriage of Anansewa, Yawo Asare’s Ananse in the Lands of Idiots, to mention but a few. The
status of African theatre has been a contested terrain between Afrocentric critics and European-
oriented ones. Many claims have been made by European-oriented critics about the recognition
of modern African theatre as of European origin: Oyenka Owomoyela for example is in this
first group. While Afrocentric critics maintain the argument that African drama and theatre
were strongly established in African cultural practices long before the advent of European
education literacy. Bakary Traore, Oyin Ogumba, Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan are in that
group. On this debate, Mzo Sirayi has this to say:

12
 Cross-cultural influence is a widespread phenomenon. In Africa precolonial theatre
and European drama traditions have had an impact on contemporary African drama.
Elements of pre-colonial and European drama traditions continue to coexist in
contemporary African drama. Most African playwrights build their plays on both
traditions. They borrow from pre-colonial theatre because of a need to return to
indigenous roots, while at the same time, drawing on European drama traditions,
for African theatre cannot operate in isolation. To put it differently, indigenous and
foreign influences have contributed to the development of contemporary African
drama (Mzo Sirayi 2012: 136).

Contemporary drama may therefore be seen, as the meeting place of both precolonial African
and European drama traditions. Many African playwrights base their plays on oral genres, such
as oral history, epic, myth, animal stories, integrating these with European drama traditions,
such as auditorium, stage, scenery, lights, actors, stage directions and rehearsals. Some African
playwrights borrow their themes from the oral forms mentioned above, whereas others draw on
indigenous cultural practices such as bride-price, marriage rituals, initiation ceremonies,
ancestral sacrifices, the authority of parents over their children, juvenile rebellion and its
consequences, etc. and combine them with European drama tradition.

2.2. Interculturalism
In the context of drama in Africa, interculturalism described as the interaction between and
fusion of both European (foreign) and African (indigenous) traditions in contemporary African
drama (Fischer-Lichte quoted by Mzo Sirayi 2012: 138). One also needs to understand the fact
that throughout history, all cultures of the world have tended increasingly to transplant elements
of foreign theatre traditions into their own productions. Berth Lindfors (1973: 11-12) argues
that some African writers try to integrate the two cultures artistically, welding European form
to African matter so skillfully that no one can tell without careful inspection precisely how and
where they have been joined. This is a hybrid tradition, because it is a distinctive new tradition
that has evolved from the two older traditions, that is precolonial African theatre and European
drama tradition. Therefore, modern African drama is heir of two traditions: traditional African
literature and western literature.

Martin Benham and Jane Plastow have this to say

13
 African theatre is entertainment, but it can also be aesthetically, politically, socially
and spiritually committed, and often it is all these things simultaneously. Moreover,
much modern African theatre refuses to be compartmentalised into a particular form
of presentation. Instead it draws on indigenous performance traditions including
dance, music, storytelling and mime, and combines them with ideas of drama drawn
from experiences of Western colonialism, to create theatre forms which are
syncretic and inclusive in both form and content. At its best African theatre is a total
experience of mind, body and soul which engages with, and feeds off, a highly
responsive, involved and vocal audience (Benham and Plastow 1999).

From their perspective, this means that modern African drama is hybrid in form and content.
They carry the idea further by saying that modern African theatre coincides with the post-
colonial period which began in 1957 when Ghana became independent of British rule. Pre-
colonial African theatre forms still require much research. They were usually dance, music and
poetry-based and served a wide range of functions including the teaching of social roles and
behaviour, explaining the history of ethnic groups, social criticism, celebration and the
fulfilment of religious rituals. Colonialism brought varying degrees of suppression of
indigenous performance forms. These were less onerous in areas such as West Africa which
were considered unhealthy for Western settlers and were therefore governed under a system of
indirect rule; and far more repressive in parts of southern and eastern Africa, where settler states
were established and efforts were made to eradicate traditional performance modes, which were
often seen as antipathetic to European Christian and cultural values, as well as potentially
dangerous foci for the incitement of rebellion. In many cases European forms of drama were
introduced by missionaries, initially to transmit biblical messages, and later, in mission schools,
in an attempt to teach metropolitan languages and inculcate European cultural values. This
theatre was seldom meant for mass consumption: instead it was a means of separating off
African elites and Christian converts from the mass of traditional peoples.

During the colonial period Africans were usually only allowed to publish or perform drama
under the patronage and censorship of their white rulers. Early plays often have biblical themes,
reflecting missionary influence; they also tend to be more or less naturalistic, since this was the
form favoured by the colonizers. Above all involvement in political debate was strictly censored
in almost all cases under colonial rule, so these plays are largely anodyne and imitative.

All this began to change rapidly during the 1960s as many African nations claimed their
independence. West Africa was the first region to come to literary prominence with many
novelists and playwrights emerging on the international scene. There are a number of reasons
for this regional prominence. Throughout the colonial experience local cultures in British West
14
Africa remained vibrant. This gave a strong sense of identity and confidence to a number of
writers, several of whom saw the literary reclamation of their history and culture as an urgent
task. Also, there were a number of élite schools and colleges established in the region, especially
in Nigeria and Ghana and these nurtured many new writers who had access to and interest in
both indigenous and Western cultural forms.

Then, there is the question of language. In British West Africa writers such as Chinua Achebe,
Ama Ata Aidoo and Wole Soyinka had all been well educated in English. They came from
multi-lingual nations whose indigenous cultures had little or no written literary tradition – albeit
very strong oral cultures. Their decision, and indeed that of many subsequent West African
writers, has been to take English and remould it to express local rhythms and usages, but still
to write in an international language. This choice to write in English has made a number of
West African writers far more internationally recognised than their peers who, equally
renowned within their own countries, have chosen to write in domestic languages.

As with many aspects of African cultures, while it is important to resist an easy homogenistic
view, it does make sense to talk about regional trends. Prominent West African writers may
have chosen to write in English, but in East and southern Africa different decisions were made.
In southern Africa, in order to promote divide-and-rule policies, many literature bureaux set up
by the British encouraged and in some cases forced blacks to write in local languages so that
their impact would be marginalised. Moreover, literacy in English and/or Afrikaans was
essential if one were to have any chance of participating in modern urban society. Consequently,
now in those countries there are thriving literatures in both indigenous and metropolitan
languages. More recently, many playwrights have chosen to write in hybrid languages which
reflect people’s day-to-day experience and maximise accessibility. In Zimbabwe there are
playwrights who claim to write in ‘Ndenglish’, a deliberate mixing of Ndebele and English, and
in [some] southern African plays... we see a basic English script which utilises many indigenous
language terms as well as a street language which draws on multiple tongues.

Finally, in East Africa there are trans-ethnic national languages such as Kiswahili which have
been promoted as a regional alternative to the need to write in English; while in countries such
as Ethiopia and Eritrea, which have ancient scripts of their own, writing has always been
predominantly in local languages. Hence the relative paucity of East African theatre which has
become known outside the region...

15
This assessment needs to be placed in context. Published theatre in Africa represents the tip of
an iceberg of theatrical productions, the vast majority of which are never scripted and certainly
never published. It is also necessary to remember the Francophone and Lusophone areas of the
continent where patterns of theatrical writing have been influenced by the different agendas of
French and Portuguese colonialism.

Returning to West Africa, in Wole Soyinka and Femi Osofisan we have... two of Nigeria’s most
famous playwrights. These two have long had an interesting dialectical relationship, in which
the younger Osofisan challenges Soyinka’s use of myth as a validation of Yoruba society.
Instead Osofisan chooses to use mythology in a much more critical manner which demands that
society constantly questions and re-examines the philosophical premises which underlie
traditional stories and beliefs. In both cases, however, we cannot but be aware that we are
encountering a society which is steeped in rich and expressive indigenous culture which reaches
back – not uninterrupted, but still vibrant – into the past as it also looks to the future. . .

Female playwrights are still a relative rarity in Africa for a number of reasons. In many places
it is considered disreputable for women to become involved in commercial performances and
it is often difficult for women to combine domestic life with the demands of the theatre. These
have been factors restricting women’s development as playwrights in many societies across the
world. Perhaps one of the most potent forces holding back African women playwrights has been
the relative lack of educational opportunities for women, particularly during the colonial era.

Ama Ata Aidoo is a triumphant example of a writer who overcame a plethora of social
handicaps to produce plays. She is a leading light amongst the small band of African women
playwrights which includes her compatriot Efua Sutherland, the Nigerians, Zulu Sofola and
Tess Onwueme, Gcina Mhlope from South Africa and Penina Mlama and Amadina Lihamba
from Tanzania. She is also recognisable West African in her world view. The pantheon on gods,
spirits, the unborn and the ancestors who are constantly encountered in much West African
writing give the cultural productions of this region a density, richness, and indeed difficulty for
the uninitiated which is unparalleled in other parts of the continent.

When we move to southern Africa we see the results of a very different historical experience.
Here for a hundred years – and for parts of South Africa for three hundred years – white settlers
seized African land, forced Africans into ignominious wage slavery, derided and sought to
repress African cultures and belief systems, and finally imposed the horrors of apartheid on the

16
people. Protest against this process has never been absent but, as in many other parts of the
colonised world, momentum grew after the Second World War – which exposed many blacks
to differing patterns of race relations – and increased as other parts of Africa gained their
independence. In Zimbabwe and South Africa... protest theatre became a force in the 1970s. In
Zimbabwe theatre was used by the guerrilla fighters as a tool for politicisation, while in South
Africa plays were mounted predominantly in the black urban townships.

Working against a background of poverty and struggle, this theatre developed its own style of
presentation which relies heavily on the plasticity of the performed. Sophisticated staging,
costume and props were not available and actors often had to be prepared to decamp quickly if
security forces moved in to stop performances. Therefore the primary tool is the actor himself
who must create his whole world through mime, sound and a bare minimum of symbolic
properties. Reflecting the urgency of the actors’ messages and the energy of urban life, many
such plays are composed in epic mode, with short scenes building up a collage picture of society
(Martin Banham, Jane Plastow: 1999).

Exercises:

1. What is hybridism in the context of African drama? What is interculturalism?

2. Explain how African drama can be interpreted as a domesticated hybrid genre.

Week3: Chapter Three: Time Sequences in the Development of (modern)

African Drama

Specific Objectives:

- Describe the different time sequences and characteristics of modern African drama

- Give the names and achievements of key figures of the pioneering phase

Development

African Anglophone drama has known different stages in its development. From indigenous
performances of rites, rituals and festivals, drama has progressively taken the form of artistic
performance in modern times. The different sensible periods in the development of African

17
drama can be articulated briefly into four: The phase of cultural nationalism from 1944-1950;
the consolidation of theatre company through independence from 1954-1964; the theatre
of the post-independence politics; and the neo-colonial theatre from 1972 to the present
day.

3.1. The Period of Cultural Nationalism: 1944-1950

 The Concert –Parties in Ghana

Since the introduction of European education in Africa, drama has taken an artistic form. Being
transformed into performing art, drama thus became literature. Modern drama and stagecraft in
Africa owes its basic impetus to the introduction of European dramatic technique. Many of the
contemporary dramatists writing in English and French have also been involved in experimental
theatre work in the African universities. The plays attempt a synthesis between traditional
dramatic material and the Western stage and production technique.

A few of the dramatists have, however, returned to the traditional ritual for material and
inspiration. What was growing up alongside the colonial drama influenced by the organizations
like the British Council can be described as “folk-opera”. It was based on biblical themes,
stories taken out of the Gospel and adapted to the stage. The actors worked in vernacular and
possessed no basic training in theatre technique. They played in the school compounds for
audiences made up largely of the semi-urban or rural community. In Ghana where the
performances were called “concert-parties”, these groups were trios. The leader of the trio
was the major factotum, combining the role of business manager and producer with that of lead
actor; the other two actors played both male and female parts and doubled as costume manager,
musician, and dancer. The plays, unscripted, were like morality plays of medieval England. The
emphasis on morality was taken both from the folk tale tradition and missionary influence.

Prior to Independence, theatre in Ghana had been classically colonial. The British imposed a
Western form of theatre, a literary theatre that formed the great paradox for post-independence
practitioners; that is to write plays about independent Ghanaian identity, the identity of the self
and the Nation, in the language of the old colonial power. With hindsight we are very lucky that
they did, as the plays of Efua Sutherland, Ama Ata Aidoo and Joe de Graft are among the most
important and insightful investigations into the search for the self-written in English.

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In 1958, Sutherland founded the Experimental Theatre Players, with funding from the Ghana
Arts Council and the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1961 it became officially endorsed and
renamed the Ghana Drama Studio, with Joe de Graft, a prominent Ghanaian dramatist (who
later starred as Wilby alongside Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine in the 1975 classic The Wilby
Conspiracy) as its first director. Here again is an example of how closely linked politics and the
arts in Ghana are. It was Nkrumah who, in 1959, had ordered the creation of the National
Symphony Orchestra of Ghana, and now, recognising the potential importance of engaging with
the people through theatre, actively associated with, and opened, the Ghana Drama Studio.

Sutherland believed in using theatre as a way of contacting and engaging with the greatest
number of people possible and in using drama as a tool for social education and change. As a
result in 1968 she founded the Kusum Players, a touring theatre company with whom she went
on to form and consolidate her Anansegoro, a revolutionary form of theatre which drew on both
the Western literary forms and also the Ghanaian flavour of interactive, total theatre, and which
was the fore - runner of the style of Abibgromma.

In 1992, on the site of the Ghana Drama Studio, Ghana’s third elected President J. J. Rawlings,
after ten years of military rule, ‘created by law’ the National Theatre of Ghana. The building
was designed to resemble sails being caught by the wind and propelling the affluence of
Ghanaian theatre out into the wider world. However, it was more politically shrewd as a public
link between Ghana and China. It was the Chinese who lent Ghana the money and the
construction workers for the building, and later cleared the debt, making the iconic home for
Ghanaian theatre a gift to the arts of Ghana. In the last few years China repeated the gesture by
funding the refurbishment of the building, and then again clearing the debt.

While the National Theatre was being built the Ghana Drama Studio was moved to the
University of Ghana at Legon, and was rebuilt as an exact replica of the original Drama Studio.
The National Theatre Company was established in August, 1983 as ‘a model repertory troupe
to facilitate teaching, research and experimentation.’ Its mission was to ‘evolve the concept of
an authentic African Theatre which draws from both traditional and contemporary legacies.’
Abibgromma as a style is a form of Total Theatre, a multidisciplinary form with a uniquely
Ghanaian flavour, and a direct line can be drawn between Sutherland’s social and artistic
mission to create and define a unique form of Ghanaian theatre with Anansegoro and the Total
Theatre of Abibigromma, which is ‘a blend of music, dance, mime, movement and dialogue
with a strong social, spiritual and folkloric base’.
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The National Theatre Company, by actively seeking to reach and engage with as many people
as possible, has picked up the baton of National Theatre Movement and taken the questioning
and redefining of identity in Ghana into the 21st century. They also stand as successors of the
Kusum Players as a force for education and social change. The National Theatre Company has
toured to over a hundred secondary schools in its twenty-four years, and taken its unique,
vibrant voice to thousands of people across Ghana and internationally. They are a truly National
Theatre Company.

 The Yoruba Travelling Theatres

In Anglophone African countries like Nigeria dramatic works were held by some individuals
considered as the pioneers of modern African playwrights. The playwrights were essentially
Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo, E. K. Ogunmola and Moses Olaiya Adejumo (alias Baba Sala).
Some critics have called this form of drama as “Yoruba travelling theatres”. Yoruba travelling
theatres have been eclectic: they were composed of elements drawn from various sources.
Playwrights were not following just one system or set of ideas, but selecting and using elements
from various doctrines, methods or styles. The masquerades (particularly Egungun and Gelede)
and the music traditions of the different kingdoms in Yorubaland execised a great deal of
influence, especially at the formative stage of stage of Hubert Ogunde. Dialogue drama also
developed through Ogunde. After 1945 his improvised plays caught the Yoruba imagination
(though there had been a tradition since the middle of the 19th century in Lagos of Dramatized
Bible stories and religious plays. In Nigeria, this type of indigenous theatre grew during the
early 1940s with the work of veteran entertainers such as Hubert Ogunde whose fame covered
the whole West African coast.

Hubert Ogunde

Hubert Ogunde’s first plays were folk operas with titles like The Garden of Eden and Throne
of God. They were presented for the Cherubim and Seraphim Church while he was still a
member of the Nigeria Police Force. In 1945, his performance took on a political dimension.
His play, Strike and Hunger, for example was an allegory that expressed the hopeless conditions
of labour in colonial Nigeria which led to the general strike of 1945. In 1946, he gave up his
job and established The African Music Research Party as a fully professional company with a
play entitled Tiger’s Empire which was another attack on colonialism. The titles of both his
theatre company and of the play indicate the direction Ogunde’s creative energy was taking at

20
this time. He wanted to revive the Yoruba music which had been downgraded by the
colonialists; and to reawaken interest in the indigenous culture. At the same time, he specifically
saw his company as the means by which he could help establish the cultural independence of
the Africans in Nigeria as a back- up to the growing movement for the political and economic
independence, or, as it was called, self-government. Both the content of his plays and the
organization of his company would show that Nigerians could be ‘self-sufficient’ in the arts.

But Ogunde soon faced the problem of non-permanence of the actors in his theatre company,
for many of his actors sooner or later had to leave to seek permanent jobs. Unlike his Ghanaian
counterparts, he did not use female impersonators. He began by using women actresses, and
when he found the problem of keeping them in the team becoming difficult, he married the
thirteen of them himself, thus ensuring stability.

Even at that stage his art was eclectic. He took the old stories, enlivened them with songs which
he himself composed, transformed Yoruba musical forms by mixing indigenous instruments
with others from elsewhere in the country, and dramatized the story in such a way that it set
forth an obvious political theme (Tiger’s Empire) or social image (Mr Devil’s Money – an
African version of the Faust theme of a man who signs a pact with the devil for money) which
was highly appropriate for the times. His shows were both traditional and modern at the same
time. They appealed to Yoruba audiences because they clearly reflected the desire for the
creation of a modern state, independent of the colonial authority, on the basis of the Nigerians’
present achievements and collective abilities. In 1947, Ogunde changed the title of his company
to the Ogunde Theatre Company; and although the content of the shows continued to shift
between overly political themes and more general social themes, the main form of his work had
been established.

The plays were moralistic. Even the political dramas were presented in the form of obvious
moral issues: colonialism which Ogunde attacked in play after play, was shown to be immoral.
Thus, a non-political play like Half and Half (1949), which tells the story of a changeling, half
deer, half beautiful woman, is not a different sort of play from Bread and Bullet (1950), which
was a play based on the Enugu coal-miners’ strike of 1949 in which eighteen miners were shot
dead by the police. It seems from accounts of the play that Ogunde overlaid the issue of the
strike with a love story. Even the politics of the piece are construed in terms of an obvious good
confronting an obvious evil. At the time, this was obvious enough. It inflamed passions and
caused the performance to be banned in the North.

21
 E. K. Ogunmola and Duro Ladipo

Kola Ogunmola was a brilliant actor of the 1950s and 1960s. He greatly admired Ogunde; and
Ebun Clark reports that Ogunde gave him financial help when he needed it most, after a long
illness. There is a published text of his dramatization of The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Amos
Tutuola’s novel. Apart from this, his two best known plays were Love of Money and
Conscience, both in the style of Ogunde’s moralistic theatre. His art fellowship at the University
of Ibadan was apparently an attempt to enrich his theatrical art.

Duro Ladipo’s plays have a detailed structure of meaning through their imaginative
dramatization of key Yoruba myths. For example, in his most famous play, Oba Ko So, different
elements all contribute quite specifically to the play’s overall meaning, such as symbolism, both
in the dialogue and the spectacle on stage, and the play’s formal rhythm, through which
characterization is established and the story unfolds. The play recounts how Shango, as king is
increasingly unable to curb the destructive influence of his two powerful generals. In the end,
he commits suicide; but in being transformed into the god of thunder he negates his act of self-
destruction: ‘the king does not hung!’, the title of the play.

Although Ladipo toured with his company, performing his plays, he was never as popular with
his audiences as the other theatre personalities, and his plays were much more consciously
artistic. The publication of his major productions as written texts will ironically establish him
as a playwright, and the one most likely to be remembered from this time.

 Black Theatre in Soweto

The popular theatre tradition in South Africa can be catergorized in three groups which Robert
Kavanagh describes as:

1. ‘Town theatre’ involving both Blacks and Whites in experimental and often highly
political theatre;
2. ‘The theatre of black consciousness’ which involved the South African Students
Organization and the Black people’s Convention who were concerned to develop the
cultural dimension into the political struggle in which they were engaged. The Junction
Avenue Theatre Company founded in 1976 was an experimental theatre company based
in Johannesburg. It has created a number of plays which have challenged ideas of
content and form in the development of South African Theatre. The company’s policy
has been to workshop plays which critically reflect South African society, reclaim

22
 hidden history and restore a voice to the voiceless. Steve Biko, Maishe Maponya, Zakes
Mda, Athol Fugard, Ngema Mbongeni are some of the playwrights who have worked
in that company, or at least have supported its ideals.
3. ‘Township theatre’ (not to be confused with town theatre’), which Kavanagh describes
as being commercial, involving music and dance, and reflecting ‘the life and culture of
the urban township, created and performed in the townships, and rarely emerging from
them.

Due to the Apartheid problem commanding at its center stage racial discrimination, South
African theatre bears the particular feature of being denunciative of that discrimination
against the Black race.

The main theatre personality in the township theatre in South Africa is Gibson Kente. Some
critics compare him to Hubert Ogunde. However, there seems to be differences which reflect
the different political situations in Nigeria and in South Africa. Kente’s early theatre work was
non-political, but was transformed into politicized theatre in 1974, by unemployment and
inflation and by the influence of the Black Consciousness Movement and the more radical
mixed-race theatre. In his play Too Late (1975), Kente sets up a group of characters: a woman,
her friend, her daughter, a young fellow who is a relative of the woman but now orphaned and
homeless; some cynical young people who have chosen a life of petty crime rather than go to a
Boer-controlled black- only university; a preacher, a doctor, and a policeman. These people
reflect the township milieu. The oppressive nature of the South African regime is indicated by
the constant harassment of Blacks by the police. This is presented in a casual sort of way that
makes the violence of the Apartheid regime seem inevitable.

Another township play is uNosilimela by Credo Mutwa, a play which has profound significance
for the revival of African culture in South Africa.

3.2. The Consolidation of Theatre Company through Independence from 1954-1964

It is a period marked by much ambitions at political level, economic level and political level.
During a period of about ten years, at political level, promises of better life were made. At
cultural level, policies in African countries have been about how to consolidate theatre
companies through independence. Dramatic art seemed to regain its vigour and resume it
normal life as African populations moved towards the acquisition of their political
independence. Most countries established national theatre departments, theatre schools and

23
departments in the universities to consolidate theatre companies. In some countries namely
Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, theatre groups were created and led by renowned
playwrights. In Nigeria, Soyinka created The 1960 Masques, in Ghana, Efua Sutherland led the
Ghana studio, in South Africa, Athol Fugard and many other playwrights wrote and performed
plays with several theatre troops. In Kenya, Ngugi wa Thiong’o wrote and performed The Black
Hermit (1962) and This Time Tomorrow (1968). Later in 1976, he illustrated himself with the
Kamiriithu Community Educational and Cultural Center. In that centre, Ngugi wa Thiong’o,
Ngugi wa Mirii and other intellectuals in collaboration with disillusioned workers and peasants
collectively formed the centre to embark upon a programme of ‘integrated rural development’,
including theatre. In that period, theatre has been used as an efficient communication tool to
assert both cultural identification and as the aspirations of the populations to political freedom.

3.3. The Theatre of the Post-independence Politics and the Neo-colonial Theatre from
1972 to the Present Day

That period is characterized by disappointment and disillusionment. It has been a periods of

critical examination of African socio-political life. It has been noted from the analysis of the
plays’ messages that much was promised before the independence but little has been achieved.
African playwrights have used drama and stagecraft to express their views about the political
life of their countries. Most plays express disappointment and disillusionment about what
African independence has achieved in terms of economic and political freedom. From second
generation writers’ plays like Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest, Opera Wonyosi, King Baabu,
Ngugi’s I Will Marry when I Want, Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, to third
generation’s like Bode Sowande’s Farewell to Babylon, Frank Ogodo Ogbeche’s Harvest of
Corruption aspects of politico-economic disillusionment have been explored.

Exercises

1. What are the different time sequences in the development of modern African drama?
Give the characteristic(s) of each.
2. What is drama of protest? Give two examples.
3. What is theatre of disillusionment? Give two examples.

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Week 4: Chapter Four: Modern African Drama and Its Audience

Specific Objectives

- Enumerate and explain the characteristics of written drama

- Compare written drama and oral drama
- Explain the difference between written drama and written fiction (novel, poem, short
story, etc)
- Enumerate and explain the major functions of modern drama

Development

4.1. Characteristics of Written Drama

 4.1.1. A Form of Creative Literature

Written drama like other literary genres (poetry and novel namely) is creative literature, that
is the product of the playwright’s creative imagination. It has a plot, setting, characters, and
develops one or several themes. The play is written in dialogues and structured depending on
the aesthetic option of the playwright. Most plays are structured into Parts, Acts and Scenes;
but there are other forms or structures. For instance, Wole Soyinka has divided his The Lion
and the Jewel into sections titled “Morning”, “Noon” and “Night”. Efo Kodjo Mawugbe instead
of Acts has opted for the terminology “Legs”. No matter the structural convention of plays, the
most important is the aesthetic design of the language used and the message being conveyed.
Plays are written to be performed and to fulfill some social functions. Drama is a tool that can
be used to initiate debates on social, political, economic, cultural or educational problems of a
society. As a committed literature it serves many purposes. But what has boosted the emergence
of African drama of written expression? A background analysis of the development of African
drama reveals the paramount role played by the establishment of drama and theatre studies
departments at the Universities in the emergence of the African play.

4.1.2. Drama as a Course discipline

From the establishment of the school of Music and Drama at the University of Ghana, Legon,
and the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Dar es Salam in the early 1960s and
the subsequent establishment of the Department of Theatre Arts separate from literature studies,
at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, a number of Universities, at least in the Anglophone
25
African countries, experienced increased pressure to create distinct courses in ‘drama’ and
theatre studies. These pressures tended to come from recently created ministries of culture who
were themselves giving expression to the rediscovery of the African personality, after the long
years of colonial domination, through a revival of African culture; and also from the students
themselves. Research into the culture was centered in the institutes of African studies, which a
large number of universities set up under a variety of names, many of whom were able to
support traditional performers and even whole performing companies.

 4.2. Staging and Performance

Staging is the art of performing a play. To stage is to arrange and perform for public show.
Staging is the second most important aspect of dramatic art after the play is written. A written
play is incomplete until it has been effectively staged and performed. Performance takes place
on the stage, a raised floor on which plays are performed in a theatre. What makes the success
of a play is the content of the message coupled with a successful performance. Almost all the
African playwrights of international renown have acquired their fame through the publishing
and the performance of their plays. Giants like Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Ngigi
wa Thiong’o have been able to stage their plays before international audiences in Africa, Europe
and America. But with the advent of film industry, stage drama tends now to decline, the same
way storytelling has declined with the modern facilities of entertainment (television, internet,
etc).

4.2.1. African Theatre and Its Audience: Social Functions

African theatre has enjoyed a place of choice in the reception of its audience. From the
traditional peasantry who used drama as a means of entertainment and relaxation; to the
committed scholars and researchers in African dramaturgy in the universities all over the world,
passing through the township educated middle class who go to theatre halls release the tension
of the work or find an entertaining companion, the African audiences have developed keen
interests in African drama. To better understand the reception of the audiences it is important
to consider the very social functions that art in the African context.

4.2.2. The entertaining Functions

Modern drama in Africa at the beginning sought to entertain theatrical audiences. Spectators,
essentially rural and semi-urban communities went to theatre to relax and to relieve the tension
of the work of the day. Drama served to purge the accumulated emotions, tiredness and stress

26
in the audience. The plays of the Nigerian pioneer dramatists like Hubert Ogude, Duro Ladipo,
E. K. Ogunmola served that purpose. So did the concert-parties of Ghanaian pioneer dramatists.

4.2.3. The educative function

Drama cannot be dissociated from society and social facts. The educative function of drama is
close to the entertaining function. To educate is to teach somebody about something or how to
do or to avoid doing something. It is to raise people’s awareness about a social danger or fact
that deserves attention. Bad behaviours like stealing, marital unfaithfulness, laziness and taste
for easy gain, prostitution, corruption, bribery, violence, selfishness are rampant common
practices in African societies and elsewhere. People need to be aware of the dangers of such
behaviours and the educative function of dramatic art comes alright to play that role. Drama
seeks to educate the African audiences, to bring them from bad manners to socially accepted
behaviours. The moralistic plays adapted from biblical stories played that role.

4.2.4. The Political Function

Drama as literature has moved from its entertaining function to assume a political function.
Drama becomes a tool, an instrument for political criticism. Many African playwrights have
committed themselves to write plays to expose political practices that are harmful to the
development of African societies. Most of Wole Soyinka’s plays are political. They are protest
plays against the abusive use of power and the misruling of African countries: A Play of Giants,
Opera Wonyosi, King Baabu, Kongi’s Harvest, Madmen and Specialists all criticize and
denounce the abusive use of power by military juntas in Nigeria and the African continent as a
whole. Soyinka uses satire, diatribe and lampoon in a declamatory manner to expose
dictatorship and call for change. Ola Rotimi also uses satire and comedy to attack post-
independent African leadership. Some of his plays like Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again and
Hopes of the Living Dead are satirical plays against the deviationism of the post-independent
leadership in Nigeria. Ngugi wa Thiong’o is also a politically committed dramatist who is
vehement with political oppressors (be they colonials or Africans) in his plays. In The Trial of
Dedan Kimathi (which he co-authored with Micere Githae Mugo), I Will Marry When I Want
and The Black Hermit, he attacks the excesses of the unjust colonizers towards Africans and
calls for revolution. He also denounces the African bad leadership, a betrayal of the hopes of
African masses.

4.2.5. Ideological Function

27
African drama has played and continues to play an ideological function. Drama is used to as a
propaganda tool for ideological ideas like feminism, Marxism, etc. Feminism advocates that
women should have the same rights and opportunities as men, and struggles to achieve that aim.
It attacks patriarchy which is a system in a society where everything is controlled and managed
by men. Many African playwrights use drama as a vehicle to promote and widely spread
feminist ideas. The case in point is Efo Kodjo Mawugbe’s play In the Chest of a Woman clearly
exposes gender equity and the equal treatment between men and women. Even Ola Rotimi’s
Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again makes the astounding statement through Liza a female
character that “Man and woman are created equal”. Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s plays vehiculate
Marxist thinking and ideology. Marxism stems from the theory of Karl Marx to explain the
changes and developments in society as the result of the opposition between the social classes.
The Marxist ideology believes that the working class which is overexploited by the bourgeoisie
will succeed one day to turn the tide and become the ruling class. Marxist literary approach
seeks to read in the literary text the social tensions as the result of the class disparities, and thus
suggest ways to reduce such disparities.

4.2.5. The aesthetic function

The Aesthetic function refers to the artistic arrangement to present drama as a work of art which
is commendable for its aesthetics. The dramatists used dramatic techniques to produce works
of quality which interests or even seduce the audiences by their forms and contents, and by the
ideas that they convey. Theater consumers seek to achieve an end that is to meet some needs
(intellectual, social, therapeutic, etc.) and playwright being aware of these, put the necessary
aesthetics to meet these needs.

Exercises
1. Enumerate and explain the characteristics of written drama
2. Compare written drama and oral drama.
3. Explain the difference between written drama and written fiction (novel, poem, short
story, etc).
4. What are the different functions of drama in African context?
5. Explain the difference between entertainment function and educative function.
6. Explain the difference between political function and ideological function.

Week 5: Chapter 5: Introduction to Some Major African Playwrights

28
Specific objectives

- Describe selected major African playwrights and say their contribution to the
development of African drama
- Enumerate some major plays that consolidates African dramatic canon

Development

Most African playwrights who have acquired fame on the continent and beyond were trained
in the universities, Western universities, American universities or African universities. Major
figures on the field of drama include Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ola Rotimi, Femi
Osofisan, Ama Ata Aidoo, Efua Theodora Sutherland, Zulu Sofola, Tess Onwueme,
Maishe Maponya, Jane Taylor, Leke Ogunfeyimi, Efo Kodjo Mawugbe, to mention but a
few. A brief biobibliographical outline of each of these playwrights will be sketched out.

5.1. Wole Soyinka (Nigerian: 1934 - )

Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka known as Wole Soyinka is a dramatist, poet, novelist, literary
critic, theatre director and sometimes actor. A political activist par excellence and the forst
black Nobel Prize winner for literature (October 1986), he is arguably the most prolific and
most distinguished African writer in the English language.1 Four rather untraditional
autobiographies to date (one political, three literary) conventionally introduce the reader to the
author’s cultural background and strong political commitments. Born in colonial in Abeokuta,
Western Nigeria in 1934, Wole Soyinka has strong-willed and activist roots in his Yoruba
lineage and culture that have gestated and informed much of his work in postcolonial Nigeria.
He was a precociously individual child whose curiosity for knowledge took him to various
schools in his early education, beginning with St. Peter’s Primary School in Ake Abeokuta
(1938-1943), where his father was headmaster, to Abeokuta Grammar School (1944-1945),
where his maternal uncle Rev. A. O. Ransome-Kuti (Daodu in Ake), was principal; and away
from home to Government College in Ibadan (1946-1950). He then proceeded to postsecondary
education at University College, Ibadan (now the University of Ibadan), the premier institution
for higher education in Nigeria under colonial administration. There, he spent two years before
going on to complete his bachelor’s degree in England, majoring with honors in English at the
University of Leeds.

1
Femi Euba in Pushpa Naidu Perekh and Siga Fatima Jagne, Postcolonial African Writers a Biobibliographical 29
Critical Resource Book (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998), p. 438
Soyinka’s eventful creative career spans some forty years to date, beginning with poems and
short stories in magazines as a student at the universities he attended. Earlier in his life, before
going abroad to study, he has identified himself as an exceptionally gifted child with a versatile
aptitude for voracious reading, making up words and stories and writing dramatic sketches for
school entertainment, and fifteen-minute plays for radio in Nigeria. However, his towering
stature as a professional literary giant has been nurtured by several experiences. At Leeds, he
studied under distinguished professors and literary figures such as G. Wilson Knight (who
acknowledged him as an insightful interpreter of King Lear) and the Marxist critic Arnold
Kettle. There, he was brought into contact with a wide range of classical and modern European
and American literature. At the Royal Court Theatre, a theatre that promoted the young and
angry avant-garde playwright of the 1960s, Soyinka participated as a play reader and as actor
and writer in the writers’ experimental workshop, an experience that significantly gave him a
strong sense of what theatre should reflect.

. Soyinka’s Major drama works and themes:

Soyinka would like to be recognized most especially as a dramatist and man of the theatre. His
dramatic works include:

- A Dance of the Forests (1963), The Lion and the Jewel ( 1963), The Swamp Dwellers (1964),
The Strong Breed (1964), The Trials of Brother Jero (1964), The Road (1965), Kongi’s Harvest
(1967), Before the Blackout (1971), Madmen and Specialists ( 1971), Jero’s Metamorphosis (
1973), Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), Opera Wonyosi (1981), A Play of Giants
(1984), From Zia, with Love (1992),
A Scourge of Hyacinths (1992), The Beatification of Area Boy (1995), King Baabu (2002).
Soyinka’s thematic concerns have been a moving target. Diachronically one may pinpoint the
following themes in his creative millstone: the impact of modernity on tradition in The Lion
and the Jewel and The Jero Plays, African cultural renaissance/revival in A Dance of the Forest,
Death and the King’s Horseman, The Strong Breed, The mismanagement and deviationinism
of African postcolonial leadership in A Play of Giants, Kongi’s Harvest and Opera Wonyosi,
the condemnation of military dictatorship in King Baabu, The Beatification of Area Boy and A
Scourge of Hyacinths, etc.

5.2. Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya, 1938-)

30
Ngugi wa Thiong’o was born in 1938 the fifth child of the third of his father’s four wives; he
had twenty-seven siblings. In 1947, at the age of nine, Ngugi attended the mission-run school
at Kamaandura. After two years he transferred to Maangu Karinga School. From 1955 to 1959,
he attended Alliance High School in Kikuyu, a bit closer to Nairobi. Early in his adolescence
several events took place that had a defining effect on Ngugi’s life: in 1953 he underwent the
initiation ceremony of circumcision. The following year his stepbrother was shot dead and his
older brother joined the Mau Mau. His mother was subsequently tortured. In 1955 his village
was destroyed as part of the anti-Mau Mau campaign. But maybe the most striking of all the
events was that his father, Thiong’o wa Nducu, was a peasant farmer dispossessed by the British
Imperial Land Act of 1915, and therefore forced to become a squatter on property meted out to
one of the few native Africans who had profited from the act. His father’s condition was similar
to that of most of the Kikuyu with whom Ngugi grew up. No wonder therefore, that many of
his literary works bitterly criticize and expose the unjust and exploitative system of British
imperialism and the excesses of African capitalist overlords who side with the Whiteman to
betray and nearly “slaughter” their African compatriots. At one time of his life, while his family
was not Christian, Ngugi himself was a devoutly Christian at one time. He published his earliest
work as James Ngugi. He later explicitly rejected Christianity, but continued to use its implicit
message of liberation, and draw material from Biblical facts in his plays and novels.

In 1959, he entered Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda and in 1964, he

graduated with an Upper Second Degree in Honors English (having written on Joseph Conrad).
The same year in 1964, Ngugi went to Leeds University on British Council Scholarship. In
1967, Ngugi returned to Kenya and became a special lecturer in English at Nairobi University.
From the time that he began at Leeds University, Ngugi has travelled extensively, giving papers
at conferences throughout the world and becoming well known as a spokesman of African
literature and Gikuyu in particular.
In 1974, he began writing the play The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (which he co-authored with
Micere Githae Mugo). The play was performed in 1976 by the Kenya National Theatre. In that
same year, Ngugi chaired the Cultural Committee of the Kamiriitu Community Educational and
Cultural Centre. From these experiences he wrote the play I Will Marry When I Want.
. Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Major Dramatic Works and Themes
The Black Hermit (1968), The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (with Micere Githae Mugo, 1976), I
Will Marry When I Want (1980), This Time Tomorrow: Three Plays (including as well The

31
 Rebels, The Wound in My Heart, (1982), Maitu Njugira (Mother Sing for Me) a play in
script. Mimeographed material.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o is much concerned with class oppression and class struggles as the result
of social disparities and unequal distribution of wealth in I Will Marry When I Want, This Time
Tomorrow: Three Plays. His writings take Marxist orientations and his plays rest essentially on
the denunciation of European capitalism, the hypocritical attitudes, the oppressive system and
the overexploitation of the poor peasants and workers by rich African capitalist overlords
conniving with the White colonial and neocolonial imperialists in The Black Hermit, The Trial
of Dedan Kimathi.

5.3. Ola Rotimi ( 13 April 1938 – 18 August 2000)

Olawale Gladstone Emmanuel Rotimi, best known as Ola Rotimi (13 April 1938—18
August 2000), was born on 13th April in Ilesha, Ogun State in Nigeria. He is one of Nigeria's
leading playwrights and theatre directors. He has been called "a complete man of the theatre -
an actor, director, choreographer and designer - who created performance spaces, influenced by
traditional architectural forms. Ola Rotimi was the son of Samuel Gladstone Enitan Rotimi a
Yoruba steam-launch engineer (a successful director and producer of amateur theatricals) and
Dorcas Adolae Oruene Addo an Ijaw drama enthusiast. He was born in Sapele, Nigeria. Cultural
diversity is a recurring theme in his work. He attended St. Cyprian's School in Port Harcourt
from 1945 to 1949, St Jude's School, Lagos, from 1951 to 1952 and the Methodist Boys High
School in Lagos, before traveling to the United States in 1959 to study at Boston University,
where he obtained a B.A in fine arts. In 1965, he married Hazel Mae Guadreau, originally from
Gloucester; Hazel also studied at Boston University, where she majored in opera, voice and
music education. In 1966 he obtained an M.A. from Yale School of Drama, where he earned
the distinction of being a Rockefeller Foundation scholar in Playwriting and Dramatic
Literature. Ola Rotimi often examined Nigeria’s history and local traditions in his works. His
first plays, To Stir the God of Iron (produced 1963) and Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again
(produced 1966; published 1977), were staged at the drama schools of Boston University and
Yale, respectively. Upon returning to Nigeria in the 1960s, Rotimi taught at the University of
Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), where he founded the Ori Olokun Acting Company,[5]
and Port Harcourt. Owing, in part, to political conditions in Nigeria, Rotimi spent much of the
1990s living in the Caribbean and the United States, where he taught at Macalester College in

32
St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2000 he returned to Ile-Ife, joining the faculty of Obafemi Awolowo
University where he lectured till his demise. Sadly, Hazel (his wife) died in May 2000, only a
couple of months before his own death.

His later dramas include The Gods Are Not to Blame (produced 1968; published 1971), a
retelling of Sophocles' Oedipus the King in imaginative verse; Kurunmi and the Prodigal
(produced 1969; published as Kurunmi, 1971), written for the second Ife Festival of Arts;
Ovonramwen Nogbaisi (produced 1971; published 1974), about the last ruler of the Benin
empire; and Holding Talks (1979).

Later plays, such as If: A Tragedy of the Ruled (1983) and Hopes of the Living Dead (1988),
premiered at the University of Port Harcourt and was a common play in OAU Drama
department. The radio play Everyone His/Her Own Problem, was broadcast in 1987. His book
African Dramatic Literature: To Be or to Become? was published in 1991.
Rotimi, a patriot who shunned the attraction of the West and Europe and returned home to
contribute his own quota to nation building, was a rare breed. Diminutive in size but a giant in
drama in Africa, he was one of the best things that could have happened to the literary

. Ola Rotimi’s Major Plays and Themes

To Stir the God of Iron (1963), Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again (1966), The Gods Are Not
To Blame (1968), Kurunmi (1969), Holding Talks (1970), Ovonramven Nogbaisi (1971), Grip
Am (1973), Invitation Into Madness (1973), Akassa Youmi (1977), If: A Tragedy of the Ruled
(1979), Hopes of The Living Dead (1985), When the Criminals Become Judges, The Epilogue:
Two unpublished plays of Ola Rotimi

 Man Talk, Woman Talk

Man Talk, Woman Talk is humorous, as quintessential comedies from the author can be. He
makes use of wry humour to seek a level playing ground for resolution of the biases men and
women nurse about one another and which affect mutual co-existence of the two. The scene is
a court though devoid of the usual technicalities of court rooms. Instead of legal jargon, there
is humuor, arguments and counter arguments. What the author arrives at is not to prove which
gender is superior but to show the complementary roles of men and women. There is a great
deal of wit in the work and the setting here is the university environment where the youthful
contenders are idealistic.
33
  Tororo, Tororo, Roro

Tororo, Tororo, Roro is a coincidental meeting of two fellows from Man Talk, Woman Talk,
Tunji Oginni and Philomena James. Both run Hotel Kilimanjaro with different motives and a
chance meeting between them elicits lessons as both share each other’s problems.

5.4. Efua Theodora Sutherland (1924 -1996)

Efua Theodora Sutherland, née Efua Theodora Morgue, was born on June 27, 1924, in Cape
Coast, Gold Coast. After completing her secondary education at Saint Monica’s Training
College in Ashanti region, she went abroad to Teacher Training College, Homerton College,
Cambridge University, where she received her B. A. in education, and also to the School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London. On her return home in 1951, she taught at
a couple of institutions, including her alma mater, St Monica’s Training College. She married
William Sutherland, an African American, in 1954, and they had three children. Sutherland
occupies a unique position as teacher, playwright, and theatre director. She was the founding
director of experimental theatre groups like the Experimental Theatre Players, now the Ghana
Drama Studio; founder of the Ghana Society of Writers, now the Writers’ workshop in the
Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. She is the creator of Kodzidan (story
house), a community theatre place in Ekumfi-Atwia, and also founding director of Kusum
Agoromba, a touring theatre group at the School of Drama, University of Ghana, Legon. Efua
T. Sutherland was also a cofounder of ekyeame, a literary magazine in Ghana. Her efforts were
recognized in the awards of an honorary doctorate by the University of Ghana. Outside of the
theatre she served as advisor to the president of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings. She was a consultant
to the Du Bois Center for African Culture and also worked with the National Commission on
children. Efua T. Sutherland died in January 1996.

. Major Works and Themes

Efua T. Sutherland is well known for three of her plays: Foriwa (1962), Edufa (1967), and The
Marriage of Anansewa (1975). Her other plays include: The Roadmakers (1961), Odasani (a
play based on everyman, 1967), Vulture! Vulture! And Tahinta: Two Rhythm Plays (1968), The
Original Bob: The Story of Bob Johnson, Ghana’s Ace Comedian (1970), Ananse and the Dwarf
Brigade (1971), Anansegoro: Storytelling Drama in Ghana (1975), The Voice in the Forest
(1983), Nyamekye; The Pineapple Child (unpublished).

34
Efua T. Sutherland’s thematic concerns are materialism and the exploitation of women through
bride-price arrangement in The Marriage of Anansewa, the role of women in nation building in
Foriwa, the emancipation of women in Edufa. Efua T. Sutherland also places emphasis on
passing on oral tradition to children. In her own words, African writers should write for
children, thus, her work also includes a number of children’s plays that are didactic and
entertaining.

5.5. Femi Osofisan (1946- )

Babafemi Adeyemi Osofisan wasborn June 1946 in Erunwon, Ogun State, Western Region of
Nigeria. He is a Nigerian writer known for his critique of societal problems and his use of
African traditional performances and surrealism in some of his novels. A frequent theme his
plays explore is the conflict between good and evil. He is in fact a didactic writer whose works
seek to correct his decadent society. Osofisan attended primary school at Ife and secondary
school at Government College, Ibadan. After secondary school, he attended the University of
Senegal in Dakar and later the University of Ibadan. He continued post-graduate studies at the
University of Ibadan and went on to hold faculty positions at the University. He obtained his
first degree B.A. from the University of Ibadan in 1969. The same year he produced his first
play A Restless Run of Locust. From Ibadan he received, a solid grounding in international
influences and a strong reinforcement of Yoruba identity. Osofisan spent some formative years
in France. Osofisan went on to get his doctorate, on the origins of drama in West Africa from
the University of Ibadan in 1974. Osofisan lost his father at a tender age. He was interested in
theatre from his young age. He traces his political convictions, his radical socialism to the
experience of poverty that the loss of his father brought him and his subsequent identification
with the ordinary people of Nigeria.

With more than fifty plays, four works of fiction, four collections of poetry and two books for
junior readers, already published, Femi Osofisan has emerged as one of the most prolific
contemporary African writers. He is one of the very few highly productive African authors
whose works are innovative and original. His imagination, vision and craft distinguish him as
a creative writer of the very first rank and one of the few literary scholars yet to come out of
Africa. He is a man of many parts. He is fundamentally a playwright, but also a poet, novelist,
storyteller, linguist, theatre producer, stage director, song writer, literary scholar and social
critic.

35
. Femi Osofisan’s Major Plays and Themes

Kolera Kolej (1975), The Chattering and the Song (1977), Morountodun and Other
Plays (1982), Many Colours Make Thunder King (1997), Farwell to a Cannibal Rage
(1986), The Oriki of a Grasshopper (1986), Another Raft (1988), Once upon Four
Robbers (1991), Twingle-Twangle A-Twynning Tayle (1992), Red is the Freedom Road
(1983), No More the Wasted Breed (1982), Midnight Hotel (1986), Yungba-Yungba and
the Dance Contest: A Parable for Our Times (1993), The Album of the Midnight
Blackout (1994), Tegonni: An African Antigone (1999), Women of Owu (2008).

Femi Osofisan writes on a variety of themes. However, one common trend in all his thematic
approaches is his desire to fight for the marginalized masses and to create a better society for
all to live in. In his own words, he writes “to awaken in our people the song of liberation”. Thus
the major themes include the mis/management of African postcolonial states in Hopes of the
Living Dead, national development in Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels, peace-making
strategies in Another Raft and Farewell to a Cannibal Rage, political consciousness in A
Restless Run of the Locusts, the denunciation of inter-ethnic wars in Women of Owu and Red Is
the Freedom Road, corruption and democratic Nigeria in Once Upon Four Robbers and Who
Is Afraid of Solarin, sexuality and sex exploitation in Midnight Hotel and Esu and the Vagabond
Minstrels, the reconstruction of womanhood in Moruntodun, Tegonni, and Yungba Yungba and
the Dance Contest, spousal communication in Restless Breed.

5.6. Athol Fugard (1932 -)

He is a South African playwright. He was educated at the University of Cape Town, where he
studied philosophy. Fugard’s plays are written in English but incorporates many regional
dialects and slang derived from vernaculars. His plays and a novel (Tsotsi) were written from
1958 while he associated with black writers and intellectuals in the freehold suburb of
Sophiatown outside Johannesburg. His plays include The Blood Knot (1961), Hello and
Goodbye (1965), Boesman and Lena (1969), Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, My Children My Africa
(1989). Fugard has always expressed concern about the racial injustice inflicted on the Blacks
and their general poor living conditions.

5.7. Zakes Mda (1953-)

36
He is a black South African writer on theatre, poet and painter. Mda was born in the Eastern
Cape Province of South Africa, and educated in Lesotho, Switzerland, the USA and Africa. His
first prominent play was Dead End produced in 1979. In the previous year he had won an
Amstel Merit award for his play We Shall Sing for Fatherland. His other plays include Dark
Voices Ring (1979), The Road (1982), And the Girls in their Sunday Dresses (2004), The Final
Dance (2005), Banned (2005), Joys of War (2006).

Exercises

1. Name two female African playwrights and give their contribution to the
development of African drama.
2. Name two male African playwrights and give their contribution to the
development of African drama.
3. Find two other playwrights who are not mentioned here and give their
contribution to the development of African drama.
4. What is particular about South African Drama? What is referred to as Black
Consciousness Theatre?

Week 6: Chapter Six: Mid-term Assessment / Some Critical

Orientations in African Drama

Specific objectives
6. Enumerate and give a brief explanation of the following literary theories: feminism, post-
colonialism, Marxism, etc…
7. Contextualize each of these theories in African drama.

Development

7.1. Feminism

Feminism is the principle or theory that advocates that women should have the same rights and
chances as men (Longman Dictionary: 476). Feminism and women’s movements have tried to
change the way women are treated by men and by society. In literary studies, Feminism tries to
fight and change the negative images and stereotypes of women. Some African playwrights
have taken feminist orientations in their plays. For instance, Efo Kodjo Mawugbe in his In the

37
Chest of a Woman rejects the idea that a woman cannot become a leader in the community, as
prescribes the matrilineal system among the Asante community. Ola Rotimi also advocates
equality between men and women through the character Liza who says “men and women are
created equal”. Compared with the past, women today have better job and educational
opportunities; and are paid and treated more equally in relation to men. Feminism has also made
people think more about what jobs women and men do in the home and when raising children.
It has also made people think more about problems such as sexual harassment at work and the
way women are depicted in literature, magazines, and newspapers, in advertisement and on
television. Feminism has not yet succeeded, however in achieving equal political power for
women, or in getting women more powerful and responsible jobs in business.

Some important contributors to feminist critical theory include Simone de Beauvoir, Judith
Butler, and Virginia Woolf.

7.2. Marxist Literary Criticism

Marxism in literary studies depicts social conditions of people/characters as the reflection of

the struggle between two antagonistic social classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or the
rich and the poor. Marxist playwrights include among others Ngugi wa Thiong’o in The Trials
of Dedan Kimathi and I Will Marry When I Want, Wole Soyinka in King Baabu, Frank Ogodo
Ogbeche in Harvest of Corruption, Ola Rotimi in Hopes of the Living Dead. That type of
literature overemphasizes the contradictory lifestyle between the well-off of the society and the
destitute or poor of the same society. The gap thus created is the source of tension and conflicts
because the poor are actually working for the rich in miserable conditions and are underpaid or
even unpaid. The poor become aware that self-liberation through struggle is the only way out
of their destitution. Ngugi wa Thiong’o says “Struggle. Struggle makes history. Struggle makes
us. In struggle is our history, our language and our being”2 They have to unite through unions.
The Marxist theory takes inspiration from the idea of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels which
form the basis of socialism and communism. Marxism explains the changes in history as part
of the class struggle (the opposition between different social classes), and states that this will

2
As quoted by Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne, Postcolonial Writers a Biobibliographical Critical 38
Resourcebook (Wesport: Greewood Press, 1998), p.2
eventually lead to the end of capitalism and the victory of the working classes. These ideas have
a great influence on political thinking and political events in literary works.

Some Key theoreticians of Marxism include among others Louis Althusser, Walter Benjamin,
Antonio Gramsci, Gyorgy Lukacs.

7.3. Post-colonialism

Post-colonial critical theory developed from the contributions of several scholars who paid due
attention to the power relationships and discourse developments between ex-colonial masters
and their ex-colonies. Key figures of post-colonial critical theory include among others Frantz
Fanon, Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka,
etc.

Post-colonial criticism depicts several historical events and shifts of political and socio-
economic significance that have taken place in Africa and other third world countries before,
during and after colonization. Post-colonial dramatist include all the generation of African
playwrights who tackle issues related to colonialism, and neocolonialism: Wole Soyinka, Ngugi
wa Thiong’o, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Ama Ata Aidoo, Efua T. Sutherland, Bode Sowande,
etc. Postcolonialism is all embrassing and can mean “a remarkably heterogeneous set of subject
positions, professional fields, and critical enterprises of former European colonies. It is a
programme of resistance against cultural domination; it signals the existence of a particular
historical legacy and/or a chronological stage in a culture’s transition into a modern nation-
state. Some postcolonial critics insist on the central concern with cultural power. But
postcolonial criticism in African play attack the mismanagement of African affairs first by the
Whiteman and by African ruler who succeeded the Whiteman after independence. It attacks
issues like military dictatorship, different forms of misruling and corruption, elections
racketing, moral decay of the elite, embezzlement. Femi Osofisan cites the gross material
inequities characteristic of post-independent Nigerian society. He summarizes it by saying:

Take a look at our salary structures, at the minimum wage level, count the sparse number
of lucky ones who even earn it…and then take a look at the squalid spending habits of
our egregious ‘contractors’, land speculators, middlemen of all sorts, importers,
exporters, etc. Or take a look at our sprawling slums and ghettos, our congested
hospitals, and crowded schools, our impossible markets… and then take another look at
the proliferation of motorcars, insurance agencies, supermarkets, chemist shops,
boutiques, discotheques, etc. The callous contradictions of our oildoomed fantasies of

39
 rapid modernization. It is obvious that as long as a single, daring nocturnal trip with a
gun or matchet can yield the equivalent of one man’s annual income, we shall continue
to manufacture our own potential assassins.3

This is a critique of the post-colonial (post-independent) conditions of people in Nigeria that

also reflects the general conditions of people all over Africa. Many modern African plays are
written to expose and criticize such social conditions. Post-colonial theory helps the reader to
look more profoundly to these social conditions that developed during and after colonialism.

Exercises
1. Explain feminism in African context. Give examples and illustrations from
African plays.
2. Enumerate two important claims of post-colonialism in African plays.
3. Explain Marxism and say how it applies to African conditions in modern African
plays.
4. Enumerate two plays written by each of the following playwrights: Efo Kodjo
Mawugbe, Efua T. Sutherland, Tesse Owueme, Ama Ata Aidoo.
5. Find one critical book or critical article written by the following authors: Eward
Said, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Frantz Fanon, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Ama
Ata Aidoo

Week 7: Chapter Seven: Case Study of Play 1 (Plot, Setting, Characters)

Specific Objective

- Give a textual critical analysis of the following elements of plays 1:

(a) Plot
(b) Setting
(c) Characters

Development

(1) The author’s bio-bibliography. What is the biography of the author? What are his/her
different published works? Is there any links between the author’s life story and the play
understudy? Can the play being studied be placed in a particular social, political, cultural
or economic context that can be related to the author’s life?

3
Femi Osofisan quoted by Helen Gilbert, Postcolonial Plays an Anthology (London: Routeledge, 1993), p. 69 40
Definitions of concepts: Plot (summary of events that builds up the story) Setting (time(s),
place(s) and mood(s) around which the story unfolds, Language (the means through which
meaning of facts and events are conveyed through the choice of words and figures) and
Style (the way language is articulated.

(2) Give an account of the plot of play 1.

(3) Tell the different elements of setting(s). Explain how important time is in the description
and location of events. What are the incidences of time on characters’ behaviours. How
do the different places in the play impact meaning on events and characters’ actions?
(4) What are the major characters in the play? Who is the protagonist? Is there an
antagonist? Explain. Describe each character in relation to his/her mindset and
worldview. Which actions, reactions or thought of that character can be used to support
your idea or claim?

Exercises
1. Identify the different settings in the play taking into account both time and space.
Explain what their incidences are on characters’ attitudes and behaviours.
2. What are the major characters in the play? What are the striking points in their
description?
3. Which characters do you think the playwright supports? Which ones do you think
he/she condemns?

Week 8: Chapter 8: Case Study of Play 1 Continued (Language and

style)
Specific objectives
- Analyse the playwright’s use of language
- Examine the different techniques used to produce that language

Development
(5) What is the author’s use of language? Does he simplify the language or does he make it
complex? What elements characterize his/her style? How does he/she domesticate
language? If not, how far is he/she a linguistic purist? Can you identify local words,
borrowed words, coined words? Are there some figures of speech? Which ones? Are
there some proverbs? Which ones?
(6) Are there some elements of oral tradition or elements of traditional drama in the play,
namely myths, legends, folktales, animal stories, rituals, festivals, rites of passage,
church ceremonies in the play? If yes which functions do they play in there?
(7) Can you identify some symbols? If yes, name them and elucidate their functions.

41
 Exercises
1. Give a critical account of the playwright’s domestication of language in play 1.
2. Identify and explain if there is any the relationship between the language being used
and the themes being developed.

Week 9: Chapter 9: Thematic Exploration of Play 1

Objective

- Identify and explain the various themes developed by the playwright

- Relate these themes to society

Development

1. Identifying the theme(s)

What are the various themes developed by the author? What social domain(s) do these
themes address? Political leadership flaws? Bribery and Corruption? Romance and love?
Marriage and family? Divorce? (Un) employment? Child Education? Gender roles? Gender
conflicts? Women’s oppression? Childlessness? African medicine? Sickness and healing?
Death and bereavement? Juvenile delinquency/Child rebellion? Rural exodus? Migration?
City life? African traditions and customs?

2. Examining how the theme has been developed or handled throughout the play

Which major technique has the playwright used to develop his/her theme?:

- Realism and pragmatism?

- Exaggeration and satire?
- Comedy?
- Tragedy?
- Tragi-comedy?

Exercises

- Identify and discuss the various themes developed by the playwright.

- How do you relate these themes to problem solving in society?

Week 10: Chapter Ten: Case Study of Play 2 (Plot, Setting, characters)
Specific Objectives

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 - Give a textual critical analysis of the following elements of plays 1:
(d) Plot
(e) Setting
(f) Characters

Development

(8) The author’s bio-bibliography. What is the biography of the author? What are his/her
different published works? Is there any links between the author’s life story and the play
understudy? Can the play being studied be placed in a particular social, political, cultural
or economic context that can be related to the author’s life?
Definitions of concepts: Plot (summary of events that builds up the story) Setting (time(s),
place(s) and mood(s) around which the story unfolds, Language (the means through which
meaning of facts and events are conveyed through the choice of words and figures) and
Style (the way language is articulated.

(9) Give an account of the plot of play 1. Tell the different elements of setting(s). Explain
how important time is in the description and location of events. What are the incidences
of time on characters’ behaviours? How do the different places in the play impact
meaning on events and characters’ actions?
(10) What are the major characters in the play? Who is the protagonist? Is there an
antagonist? Explain. Describe each character in relation to his/her mindset and
worldview. Which actions, reactions or thought of that character can be used to support
your idea or claim?

Week 11: Chapter 11: Case Study of Play 2 Continued (Language,

Style and Themes)
Specific objectives
- analyse the playwright’s use of language
- Examine the different techniques used to produce that language

Development
(11) What is the author’s use of language? Does he simplify the language or does he
complexify it? What elements characterize his/her style? How does he/she domesticate
language? If not, how far is he/she a linguistic purist? Can you identify local words,
borrowed words, coined words? Are there some figures of speech? Which ones? Are
there some proverbs? Which ones?
(12) Are there some elements of oral tradition or elements of traditional drama in the
play, namely myths, legends, folktales, animal stories, rituals, festivals, rites of passage,
church ceremonies in the play? If yes which functions do they play in there?
(13) Can you identify some symbols? If yes, name them and elucidate their functions.

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 *Identifying the theme(s)

What are the various themes developed by the author? What social domain(s) do these
themes address? Political leadership flaws? Bribery and Corruption? Romance and love?
Marriage and family? Divorce? (Un) employment? Child Education? Gender roles? Gender
conflicts? Women’s oppression? Childlessness? African medicine? Sickness and healing?
Death and bereavement? Juvenile delinquency/Child rebellion? Rural exodus? Migration?
City life? African traditions and customs?

3. Examining how the theme has been developed or handled throughout the play

Which major technique has the playwright used to develop his/her theme?

- Realism and pragmatism?

- Exaggeration and satire?
- Comedy?
- Tragedy?
- Tragi-comedy?

Exercises
1. Give a critical account of the playwright’s domestication of language in play 2.
2. Identify and explain the various themes developed by the playwright.
3. Identify and explain if there is any the relationship between the language being
used and the themes being developed.

Week 12: General Revision + Assessment

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