INTRODUCTION
Lessons 1 & 2
Theatre can be defined as any (usually dramatic and highly visual) performance art that represents event or action (usually significant) before an audience, utilizing features such as music, dance, spectacle, speech, gesture and aspects of other performance arts. The best approximant to this concept of theatre in our present-day African setting is the periodic traditional festival. Most theatre are associated with religious celebrations by communities. Drama, on the other hand, can be defined as theatrical actions in which the linguistic element is paramount and relatively fixed and in which the presentation is usually in a proscenium. It can also be seen as an imitation of interacting persons and events, by actors or role players in a staged manner. Western drama would usually observe the Aristotelian dictum of being a representation or mimesis of action or life, descriptive of character through the use of plot and dialogue. The conventional features of Western drama are thus linguistic content, stylized scenery, a proscenium barrier between actors and spectators, costumes, and a few others.
There are elements in African traditional theatre that resemble but are quite different from those in Western drama. There is usually an audience but it is nearly always actively participatory rather than detached as in the Western dramatic tradition. Rather, therefore, than an audience, we have participants who are actor-spectators. Elderly viewers criticize the performance and fulfill the role of our modern literary critics. There is a caste that is usually subjected to selection tests for the best dancers, singers or carriers of masquerades. In place of the proscenium we have the arena (theatre in the round) which could be either the market place or the shrine or the village/town square. But staging can also be progressive or processional, involving all the paths or streets walked through. There could be simultaneous staging where different actions take place at the same time at different sites/stages. For dressing rooms we have the cult houses from which the masquerades process. Masking is, of course, a form of costuming. There is minimal dialogue in African theatre and it is mostly spontaneous and innovative. It is rarely fixed. Role-play is hardly ever formal realistic representation. It is usually symbolic, emphasis being on spectacle and religious significance.
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The earliest records of theatre date back to 2500 BC ancient Egypt in the sacred plays of Osiris and Osis. Most traditional theatre are religious ceremonies. The Egwugwu and Umanwu of Eastern Nigeria (and even our own Okere and Agbassa Juju in Warri) exhibit mimetic dances during festivals which are often ritualistic physical realizations of god or spirit or enactments of the mythical, legendary or historical past. The actions are representative of both human and spirit conduct but are usually swallowed up by the festive concentration on dancing, drumming and spectacle. Apart from festivals theatre often occurs also in funeral, initiation, exorcism and other rites. In Old Oyo (Western Nigeria) Egungun and Ogboni cult members and family guilds organized semi-professional troupes that created masque-dramaturges which were essentially sacred or reserved theatre, mostly descriptive of mythical phenomenon. The characters were mythological or totemistic, the plots haphazard and sketchy, the gaps filled by spectacle, choruses, 'orchestra, pantomime, tableau and revue' to borrow a critic's words. There are a few examples of non-religious theatre. The Bushman of South Africa had ceremonies during which hunting expeditions were dramatized. There was costuming in form of body painting, wearing of animal skins and imitation of human and animal behaviour. The Akan in Ghana have stylized folktale narration called anansesem or anansegoro where both narrator and audience-spectator get involved in sporadic mimesis and role-play. We are all hopefully familiar with the usual anti-phonal collaboration and occasional dancing associated with folk tales. Lastly, mention would be made of the present-day Egungun who are known to enact, in addition to historical events, brief mimetic action in the guise of social satire, occasionally with verbal aspects.
Straddling the gray between theatre and drama are a number of theatrical performances staged for relatively non-participatory audiences outside the festival setting. Ancient Bornu had puppet shows presented behind specialized 'screens' ( recorded in the mid 19th century) and were spread as far as Zaria, Bida, Southern Nigeria, present Niger Republic and Northern Cote d' Voire. There were also, in the late 19th century, similar puppet shows in Egypt but these were of Arab origin (creations of Syrian theatre managers). The skits had a definite plot, action (usually comedy) characters, and were presented with music. Clearly the most extra-ordinary of these relatively secular theatre were the Mandingo (Mande) and Bambara (in present-day Sudan, Cote d' Voire and Mali) comedies recorded in the 1920s. These satirized aspects of societal conduct in quite elaborate dramatic forms. They started with an opening ballet, a prologue, a presentation of the caste and then went on to enact a full imitation of human character and action. There was costuming in form of farcical dressing by the actors/players and the audience sat and watched, unlike in normal traditional African theatre where the audience was participatory.
Finally, we have the West African concert parties that emerged in the middle of the first half of the 20th century. Their operatic drama effectively linked modern stagecraft and traditional theatre. In Ghana, the concert parties developed in the 1930s alongside Christian cantatas. The concerts were enacted by itinerant music bands that integrated comic skits with musical performance. Folk operas later developed, especially in the 1940s, in imitation of the European opera (which dated back to the late 19th century and early 20th century both in Ghana and in Nigeria). The operas of Herbert Ogunde flourished in Nigeria in the 1940s. Herbert Ogunde, who had his beginnings in church ceremonies continued for three decades to mix biblical and traditional themes while doing both African and Western adaptations in English and in Yoruba. He also featured contemporary socio-political satire but always ensured the presence of traditional features like ritual, song, dance, drumming and participatory theatre. The concerts did not develop into Modern African drama, a literary genre that either pre-dated (especially the colonial European variant) or continued to exist contemporaneously with them.
Lesson3
The origins of Modern African drama would be found in attempts by individual playwrights to engage in creative writing using Western skills. The posthumously-published (1974) The Blinkards said to have been written by a Ghanain, Kobina Sekyi in 1915, is possibly the earliest example of Modern African drama, although there is information about a late 19th century Xhosa (South African). In the contest too as the beginning of Modern African drama would be 'King Eiejigbo' by one D.O. Oyedele referred to in a Lagos, Nigeria, critical review in 1904. In North Africa, where Napoleonic European influence had been dominant since the 19th century, Shakespearean influence was identifiable in Ahmed Shawqi's adaptation and parody of Cleopatra , published well before the 1930. The two decades following saw the emergence of Al-Hakim's (Arabic) mental plays and, later, Rashad Rushdie's theatre of the absurd plays. A flowering of Modern African drama occurred in South Africa in the 1930s with Plaaje's translation of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and Julius Caesar and later, H.I.E. Dhlomo's publication of the play, The Girl Who Killed to Save. There were also, at this time, the French African classroom plays of Ecole William Ponty of St, Louis, Senegal, where themes of resistance to cultural assimilation were enacted, following closely the French dramatic traditions of using noble heroes and legends. These established a tradition for several subsequent plays featuring the heroic ancestor using Western motifs. As Colin Granderson puts it, their primary concern was 'the rehabilitation of historical figures and the reconstruction of the past in reaction to colonial history and civilization' (Ogunba, 83). The 1940s saw plays like The Third Woman (a Christian rehash of an Akan myth) by J.B. Danquah.
It was, however, in the 1950s and 60s that Modern African drama or (literary drama) came to be firmly established as a popular though elitist genre. It was the product of Africans who had been exposed to Western education and who felt the need to re-interpret the contact of their traditional world and the alien Western world in dramatic terms. This new drama exhibited many features of traditional African theatre such as 'songs and dances and (made) use of proverbs and vernacular language idioms in dialogue' but 'The link between new staged theatre and unwritten indigenous drama is a tenuous one' (Dathorne, 317) In fact, many of the modern plays tended to emphasize the generation gap between the old traditional world and the new Westernized Africa. The many adaptations bear witness to the fact that the plays originated from a Western and a Western inspiration, despite the external concessions to Africanity'
The long list of modern playwrights and their choicest works include Kolawole Ogunmola, Obotunde Ijimere (Eda, an adaptation of Everyman) Ene Henshaw (This is Our Chance, Medicine for Love) Ogali Ogali, Duro Ladipo, Wale Ogunyemi (with an adaptation of Shakesspeare's Macbeth) Ola Rotimi (with an adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again) Wole Soyinka (with an adaptation of Euripides' Bacchae, The Lion and the Jewel, The Jero Plays) J.P. Clark ( Ozidi Saga, Wives Revolt ) Zulu Sofola (Wedlock of the Gods), Tess Onwueme, Femi Osofisan, Kola Omotoso, Bode Sowande, Tunde Fatunde, Olu Obafemi (Nigerians) Sarif Easmon (Dear Parent and Ogre) Yulisa Maddy (Sierra Leoneans) Joe de Graft, Efua Sutherland (The Marriage of Anansewa), Ama Atta Aidoo (Dilemma of a Ghost) (Ghanaians) Lewis Nkosi (Rhythm of Violence) Robert Serumaga, Athol Fugard (Sizwe Banzi's Dead) (South Africans) Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Julius Nyerere (who had an adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar) (East Africans) Tafik al Hakim (Fate of a Cockroach) Kateb Yacine, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin (North Africans)
We will study 'The Trials of Brother Jero', Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, Wives Revolt and one other.
Reading List:
1. African Literature Today (ALT 6) 1972?
2. Christopher Heywood, ed. Perspectives on African Literature. London: Heinemann, 1971.
.3. Dathorne, O. R. African Literature in the Twentieth Century. Abr. ed. London: Heinemann, 1976.
4. Finnegan, Ruth. Oral African Literature. Nairobi: Oxford UP, 1970.
5. Ogunba, Oyin and Abiola Irele. Theatre in Africa. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1978.
6. Umukoro, M. Oghenevize. Creative Drama and Theatre in Education. Ughelli: Eregha, 2009.
Lessons 4&5: Wole Soyinka's 'The Trials of Brother Jero'
(Initial Capabilities-type test during this module: Marks over 10 or 20, depending on general performance )
The play starts with a prologue-like self-introduction by Brother Jero, the chief protagonist. He announces himself as a prophet and goes on to tell us what prophets are like: they are hungry for followers (customers); they could exploit the sexuality of prospective members; they engaged often in 'territorial warfare'; they could even stage church coups, etc. They did all these to gain (trade) advantage over fellow prophets (competitors). Jero himself, as he confesses without any qualms, had overthrown his Master-Prophet and ousted him from his piece of beach-land. For this, he had had a curse placed on him: he would meet his downfall through women. This is incorporated as a brief half-verbalized and half-mimed flash-back. He goes on to reveal that he has a weakness for women. He also touches on the ludicrousness of denominational nomenclature. By the end of the scene, it is obvious that he is not only a critical mouthpiece but also a representative satiric butt.
Significantly, the plotting and enactment of events as from scene 2 fail to strictly validate the prologue's 'verbal assertions' or advance the themes of ecclesiastical dissension and betrayal; denominational proliferation; commercialization of religion and the condonation of lasciviousness earlier broached. The main import of the prologue would, therefore, seem to be in the characterization of Jero. But, as Aristotle points out in the Poetics, 'And, if someone writes a series of speeches expressive of character, and well composed as far as thought and diction are concerned, he will not achieve the proper effect of (drama)'
Good critics of literary drama usually bear in mind the fact that drama is first theatre before it is literature. That is to say that, theatrical elements are even more important than literary elements. Despite being primarily concerned with literary qualities, therefore, the student of literature nevertheless gives due regard to elements of theatre in the evaluation of drama. These two aspects of drama approximate to Aristotle's prescription of Action and Thought as part of the essential elements of drama. By Action he meant the concentrated display or performance of meaningful and significant events mimetic of actual life. By Thought he meant mental processes discernible from verbalization. Thought he closely linked with a third element: Character. As he warns, performance does not aim primarily at the presentation of character: for character is involved only for the sake of the action.
In dramatic terms, therefore, the major themes of this play start to unfold as we are taken in scene 2 into the world of matrimonial incompatibility. Amope, Chume's wife, is an exaggerated picture of a termagant. She is an almost farcical but typical nagging toughian of a wife, eternally contemptuous of her husband's estate and efforts. This domestic feature remains one of the main themes of the play.
Amope, however, also affords us the opportunity of seeing what Chume has to put up with merely for the psychological comfort of the prophet. For, as the prophet himself explains later in scene 3, followers have to be kept perpetually dissatisfied and hopeful so that they remain ardent and dependent on the prophet. Chume is, therefore, under strict injunction not to beat his troublesome wife. As we get to see later, immediately Jero discovers that Amope, whom he owes money, is Chume's wife, he permits him to beat her.
We probably can also make something out of the fact that the prophet was indebted, and for the vainglorious purpose of appearing attractive. As he explains this in Scene 3, he takes a swipe at the love for titles among religious leaders.
Scene 3 also dramatizes the prophet's lechery as he admires a semi-nude young girl. By the end of the scene, he had gotten into serious trouble with a woman who had exposed her thighs while chasing after a drummer boy.
Unreasoning fanaticism is then satirized as Chume joins in frenzied prayer without waiting to know what was being prayed for. Others who arrive later join the chorus with the same unreasoned zeal. Fanaticism is placed in very despicable light when the prophet detaches himself from the praying adherents to comment derogatorily on them. He actually sees what others see as spiritual ecstasies as 'self-abasing convulsion'. When he prays or when he addresses the adherents his language is bitingly mock-heroic: 'habourer of Ashoreth, protector of Baal, kneel, kneel'; 'Apprentice of the Lord...'; 'sister in Moses' (Sc 3). When he reveals the presumptuous nature of his prophecies, it becomes clear that all the wild displays are much ado about nothing.
Chume's materialistic prayer and the enthusiastic responses it elicits underline the selfish bases of false religion. It very effectively enacts a pathetic desire for fulfillment of dream and illusion through religion. Wish-fulfillment and dreams of luxury thus replace resolute action and genuine progress. Messianic pretensions mislead the people to rely on an advocate and mediator who thereby keeps them 'unaware'. Most unfortunately, even a parliamentarian is seduced by the false prophecies of our notorious charlatan. He even supposes that the prophet had vanished when he had merely run away. When the parliamentarian leaps up, by the end of the play, to remove his shoes because he was supposedly on holy ground, more than mere gullibility is mocked: it is as if religion itself stands ridiculed.
A villain and complete rogue is called 'Master' because followers are without a sense of direction. Followers are tied to their devious leader because of the illusory goals he offers them. The picture is that of a gullible people chasing after mirages, led by false hopes and promises. At the political dimension, the play becomes a parody of the situation during the promise-laden manifesto-days of the first republic politicians: 'I say those who dey walka today, give them their own bicycle tomorrow. Those who have bicycle today, they will ride their own car tomorrow' (29).
It, however, remains relevant today, both politically and at the socio-cultural level. A satire aims at effecting changes in society by subjecting some of our ligher human foibles to derisive humour. In present-day Nigeria where false and outright treacherous leaders abound both in the corridors of power and in the households of God, this little play is very pertinent indeed.
Lessons 6 & 7: Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again - Ola Rotimi
While studying Soyinka's 'The Trials of Brother Jero', we concentrated on identifying the moral lessons discernible in the series of events and speeches as they unfolded. We determined that the play was a satire and described the main function of this sub-genre as the exorcism of societal ills through derisive laughter. Ola Rotimi's Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again is probably even more hilarious than 'Trials' and is also a satire, but our approach has been to list the functions of Literature taught us in ENG 112 and to determine which of the several functions appear to be primarily served by the play. We concluded that the entertainment function was predominant and that the play was first and foremost art for art's sake before it was anything else. We have since, in a class seatwork, attempted to list and explain the events or situations that are the major sources of comedy in the play. Due to the exigent (though endemic!) abridged nature of our courses, we will be able to discuss only two other aspects of style in this play: theatrical technicality and the use of language.
Technical Issues
When I last mounted this course, we were able to stage 'Trials' in the classroom, with the help of our theatre arts students. Apart from the bicycle scene, Jero's escape through a window and the spotlighting of the would-be parliamentarian, we had little or no theatrical challenges. It is possible to see 'Trials' as just-a-little-more-difficult-to-stage than a typical classroom play. The same cannot be said of Husband. Even the mere setting is tasking: Major Lejoka-Brown's antiquated, wattle and clay-walled home is not only a standing wonder of 19th century indigenous architecture but must also be 'a curiously uncensored picture of well-meaning chaos'. Then there is the introductory scene titled 'Atmosphere'. Although very effective in generating an atmosphere of comedy, we have to concede that a campaign procession with loud drumming and singing, excited spectators applauding, partisans waving banners with catchy phrases ('loud-mouthed slogans') we would not be able to realize very easily. Then there is Lejoka-Brown displaying a live (though baby) python on his arm! Thus, despite the fact that the sheer atmosphere of festivity is arresting, electrifying and good spectacle in the Aristotelian sense, it would be, to say the least, quite demanding to stage.
Later, we would be required to scenically represent an international airport complete with noise of landing jet plane (and, incredulously, a shoe shiner and an orange-hawking girl. But, of course, in a typical farce, the incongruous often serves to heighten the humour.) It has to be conceded that in the airport scene, and especially in the demolition scene, there is an effective conveyance of difficult-to-realize action through reportage and sound devices. A remaining nagging discomfort, however, would be the fear of the sound of a landing jet plane possibly causing an audience stampede. If the play was a video clip everything would be alright; but it is staged drama! If it were video recording we simply would shoot a scene again and again until we were able to create the precise picture demanded by the playwright, for example, Lejoka-Brown's agbada billowing in the wind in the airport scene as he chases Polycarp.
This brings us to another difficulty: the significant number of finical stage directions. While some can only be fully realized cinematically, using close-up cameras, as hinted above, others are simply tasking to actualize. For example, Sikira's crazy antics at the announcement of the arrival of Liza have to be delivered not only in feigned English accents but also in the 'desperate stammer of a he-goat just before coitus'. Liza's carriage is that of 'the erect, self-assured bearing of a young banana plant'! As Mama Rashida tries stealthily to tidy-up the sitting room, with Liza backing her, the bottom of a chair she carries has to unhinge at a precise moment, followed by 'a querulous clatter of falling lumber pieces'. It is as if the playwright strains continually at the dramatic leash in his lust both for the internal mental world of the novelist and the particularistic, crafted recording of the video theatre. As Mama Rashida bumps accidentally against a snooping Liza the chicken in the basket cage she carries on her head have to be 'jolted into a protest of mass squawking'. When Lejoka-Brown and Okonkwo return from the airport their presence has to be signaled by a car humming to a halt outside (as also in Act II Sc. IV when Liza returns from the Bar Beach) Not only must we procure a sakara tune, the disk has to be ancient enough to be played on a record player. We also have to pre-record a radio programme and secure a Caucasian to act as BBC correspondent. It is not as if these demands cannot at all be met. That is not the point being made. What is being pointed out is that the play would be technically tasking for the ordinary director to stage given the preponderance of finical circumstantial details. The dramatis personae are often directed precisely what expression to wear on their faces and exactly what inflections to give their voices. For example, in Act II Sc I, Lejoka-Brown has to show his wonder at Sikira's freedom chant by asking Okonkwo what he thought the matter was, 'poker-faced'. He goes on to address Liza with 'malevolent casualness' then 'scowls accusingly' at her. Madam Ajanaku's tone suddenly becomes 'calm and mordant' as she delivers her speech in Act II Sc. VI. The playwright would prescribe every gesture or facial nuance of the actors as in a novel.
Linguistic Issues
This last example takes us to the problem posed by the use of unfamiliar terms. Cognizant of this, the playwright has provided a long glossary for the several Arabic, Yoruba, Urhobo, English Pidgin and Creole words. Unfortunately, as would be obvious, the audience would not have access to the glossary while watching the play as staged drama. The audience would simply hear strange language like 'La rahbaniyya fil Islam!' , 'Unsurni ya Allah' , 'Arhamni Ya - Allah' (Arabic) 'O ma se o', 'Kilode Oga?' (Yoruba) 'Yarn me boh!' , 'Four men dey wahala me outside, sah. Dhem say dhem wan see ...' (Pidgin English) and try as hard as they can to figure out whatever is being said.
It could be argued that many of the strange terms are mere exclamations and usually occur in contexts where their meanings can be guessed. That is to say one does not have to know what 'Wallahi!' means in Act I Sc I before realizing that Lejoka-Brown is merely affirming through the exclamation what he has said. Similarly, it would be argued that 'patapata' in Act II Sc I which means 'completely' could easily be inferred to be merely intensifying 'finish' . Unfortunately, these kinds of arguments take the intelligence or natural linguistic skills of whatever audience is watching the play (and at whatever location in the world) for granted. 'Wallahi' does not even carry the same associations of meaning in Arabic and Hausa. It is a word whose use and meaning is locally and socio-culturally determined, with the Hausa-Northern Nigerian variant carrying connotations of profanity (popularized in the South by soldiers during the civil war). From the glossary, the word obviously also has its own connotations in Yoruba. As for the Yoruba word 'patapata', if it is actually superfluous then why was it needed? Non-Nigerians cannot even imagine how this word sounds. The seemingly bilabial plosives here (sounds absent in Yoruba) are actually labio-velar plosive diagraphs, not usually differentiated from /p/ in Yoruba orthography. It is obvious, therefore, that in the toggle with Ola Rotimi's catalogue of strange terms in this play, actors would from time to time be called upon to sound words which they cannot even pronounce and say things which they do not thoroughly understand.
As for the audience, it would be hard to imagine how the avalanche of strange terms and languages would be processed by them. It could be imagined how exciting and intriguing an Indian audience would find a play in English heavily flavoured with local parlance and Sanskrit. In a sense, this would be a truer reflection of the life the playwright wishes to imitate (in the Aristotelian sense) than a careful translation of obscure terms into universal English. Unfortunately, a Nigerian audience would not respond with equal enthusiasm to such an Indian-flavoured play. Similarly, it cannot be expected that non-Southern Nigerian audiences would respond to Husband with equal enthusiasm.
Moreover, many of the so-called English pidgin terms, are either local or slangy varieties (jagajaga, ugbarugba, manafiki, for example) or are Sierra-Leonean Creole language ('tory leke plasas' , 'nahim dat' , 'na four-forty dat') not universally shared by Nigerian English Pidgin speakers. Thus, apart from the fact that the full import of the several vernacular terms (Ogongo, gaan, yawo,) and pidgin words (kola, nyash, katakata, butu, ) cannot be fully realized by a foreign audience, there is even the prospect of a number Nigerians being cut off to a significant extent.
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