NIGERIAN DRAMA: FIRST GENERATION PLAYWRIGHTS

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last post we introduced you to the first indigenous drama written in English found among Onitsha Market Literature pamphlets. We also saw the first real full-fledged play in English pioneered by James Ene Henshaw. In this unit, you will be introduced to a stage in the development of Nigerian drama. This generation of playwrights is also referred to as the tragic aesthetic school.

The dramatic literature of each period at any stage of development is a reflection and a criticism of the societal values prevalent at the time. In this section, we will start out discussion of sophisticated dramatists all of whom are university lecturers. We will concentrate on their earliest preoccupation. Each play reflects the playwrights background though some of them treated nationalistic themes in their works.

The playwrights that we will discuss in this unit fall under the tragic aesthetic school. They present plays in which the burden of the society “is placed upon a few to accept” that fate has determined a tragic path far them, in order that others may live” (Benham and Wake 20). The tragic character accepts the burden even at the expense of his life willingly. This willful sacrifice is found in plays like The Gods are not to Blame and Death and the Kings Horseman

Other themes found in these plays are celebration of culture, culture conflict, conflict between the old and the new system. However in all these, the gods or supernatural forces play important roles in the affairs of men. According to Chidi Amuta, the earlier works of drama of these period were dominated by “…a certain preoccupation with the metaphysical and the supernatural (154). They propose a tragic vision which hails individual heroism.

3.1. John Pepper Clark (Bekederemo)

Kalu Uka’s introduction of J. P. Clark appears to be the best so far written about about him. It is therefore quoted it for you here. Obviously, since Prof. Uka is a playwright and a poet he seems well positioned to give a good introduction of a fellow poet. As a poet, he convey so much in within such a small space. J. P. Clark, according to him. 

He was born in the eastern Ijaw area …of what is now called Delta State in Nigeria in 1935 out of the mixture of rainforest, delta jungle, riverine mangrove and water-spirits culture of Warri, Clark (Bekederemo) clearly brings a philosophy of man and his environment which informs his theatre. The sagas and epics of the Ijaw, the festive Ekine drama and its conventions, as well as the borrowed elements of classical western European drama…have all been, in one form or another, fused into prevalent themes, techniques and tone of J. P. Clark’s plays. (75)

J. P. Clark retired as a professor from the University of Lagos. He set up a theatre group with his wife, Ebun Clark, who is also a dramatist. Our discussion on Clark here is strictly on his theatre.

It is difficult to say that this particular play is set in the colonial, pre-colonial or post independence Nigeria. The physical setting is always clear. The plays represent an overlapping of the past into the present. In Ozzidi for instance, Ozzidi is both the actor and narrator. The narrator exists in the modern era where cars and national politics exist but the hero, Ozzidi himself is a legendary hero who lived with his exploits in the past. However, by the end of the play, the past and the present are blended as Ozzidi and the narrator emerge triumphantly in the end.

His first play is Song of a Goat (1961) which appears to the most popular. In this plays, through certain allusions, one could say that it is set in modern Nigeria of the 60s. the actions of the characters which reflect a village that has not be touched by any element of modernity contradicts the seemingly contemporary setting of the play. This ambiguity helps the playwright to achieve his purpose of evoking his traditional background, their norms and taboo.

Incest is a taboo in this culture that requires atonement. Although Zifa is impotent and hides it from his wife, his wife Ebiere should not have had a sexual intercourse with his husband’s younger brother Tonye. She should have realized that in their culture that any “sexual intercourse wider deviant conditions requires propitiation if the families involved are not to be cursed” (Wren II).

Some of these early plays adopt the five act structure. The hero Zifa is a wealthy man in his society. Unfortunately he is impotent and also bears a family curse. His wife as stated earlier takes in a lover. Zifa discovers the pregnancy. But his aunt Orukokere who has the gift of prophecy foresaw the tragic end of the play but nobody listens to her.

In his proud rage (tragic flaw) instead of calling his brothers to resolve the issue by offering the right sacrifices for propitiation and atonement, he slaughters a goat as asks his bother to force the head of the goat into the pot (error of judgment) which is an impossible task. Like the classical Oedipus, he allows pride to rule his life so he defies the gods, the seer and indeed the clan.

The slaughtering of goat in this play for sacrifice has terrible consequences because it is done for the wrong reason. So symbolically it indicates his unacceptability of his brother, his wife and their illicit relationship. Tonye hangs himself while Ebiere collapses. As Zifa leaves the compound apparently to kill himself because a neighbour describes his suicidal strides to the sea.

Clark does evoke traditional ways of life of his people. He makes use of riddles a lot, and draws images from his surrounding. The image of a house is used by Ebiere to present to the Masseur her husband’s refusal to have sexual intercourse with her

…it is not my fault. I keep my house

Open by night and day

But my Lord will not come in

Why? Who bares him?

I do not hinder him …

My house his its door open I said (Clark)

Masseur later confronts Zifa but with riddles and the image of farmland. Zifa who comes from the same cultural background understands easily.

Masseur: …you have allowed the piece of

fertile ground made over to

you to run fallow with elephant grass

Zifa: …what do you mean

Masseur: …anyone can see the ears and the

Tassels of the grass from afar off

Zifa: …has she told you something

You can see that not only novelists draw from oral literature, playwrights also do. Other plays by J. P. Clark are Ozzidi (1966), The Raft (1964), The Masquerade.

3.2. Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole (Wole) Soyinka was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He is a novelist, a poet and a playwright. He is also a lecturer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, the first African to be so honoured. He is acclaimed ambassador for the promotion of African culture, human rights and freedom of expression. He has been playing an active role in the political history of Nigeria. In 1965, he seized the western Nigerian Broadcasting service studios and demanded for the cancellation of the rigged western Nigerian. Regional Elections after which he was arrested and arraigned but freed later.

He was also arrested and put in a solitary confinement by the then Head of State, General Gowon for his attempts at brokering a peace between the warring Nigerian and Biafran sides. While in prison, he wrote poetry on tissue paper which was published in a collection titled Poems from the Prison when he was released twenty two (22) months later, he recounted his experiences in prison in his book The Man Died: Prison Notes 1972.

Despite his detentions and imprisonment, he has remained a consistent and outspoken critic of bad leadership in his country and other countries. His play, A Play of Giants is a satire on tyrannical leadership especially in Africa. He discovered his flair for creative writing early in life. In his secondary school, Abeokuta Grammar School, “he won several prizes for literary composition” (internet). After his studies at the Government School Ibadan, he secured an employment as a Clark during which he wrote some radio plays, and short stories that were broadcast on Nigerian radio stations. It is not surprising then that at the University College Ibadan, he studied English Literature, Greek and western history. He gives a detailed account of his early life in his book Ake: The Years of Childhood.

In 1964, he was admitted to the University of Leeds, England to continue his studies in English Literature under the supervision of his mentor Wilson Knight. There he met some talented British writers and before he defended his B. A. Thesis he has successfully engaged in literary fiction publishing several pieces of comedic nature. He also worked as an editor for The Eagle an infrequent periodical of humorous character.

On completion of his first degree, he remained in Leeds where he wrote his first major play, The Swamp Dwellers in 1958. In his plays, he attempts to merge the European theatrical traditions with those of his Yoruba cultural heritage. In 1959, he wrote The Lion and the Jewel, followed in 1960 by The Trials of Brother Jero. This last play brought him to limelight which established his fame as Nigeria’s foremost dramatists.

In 1960, he received the Rockefeller Research Fellowship from University College, Ibadan and returned to Nigeria. It was after that he produced his play, The Trials of Brother Jero. His play which won the contest as the official play for Nigerian Independence Day is A Dance of the Forest. The play is a biting criticism of Nigeria’s political elite and his prophesy in that play is still being fulfilled as the country drifts aimlessly due to the activities of the political elite. The play premiered in Lagos performed by the theatre group that he established was titled The 1960 Masks. Soyinka has contributed immensely to the development of Nigerian literature especially the dramatic genre.

With the financial gains from the Rockefeller Foundation for research on African Theatre, Soyinka bought a Land Rover and traveled throughout the country as a researcher with the Department of English Language of the University College, Ibadan. It was at this time that he published his famous criticism of negritude championed by Leopold Senghor. It described it as a nostalgic and indiscriminate glorification of the Black African past that ignores the potential benefits of modernization. He insists “A tiger does not shout its tigritude…it acts” . In 1963, he produced his first feature-length

movie Culture in Transition. In April 1964, he published his famous novel, The Interpreters.

Soyinka is both a creative writer and a critic of both literature and society. He does hesitate to criticize the cult of personality and government corruption in African dictatorship and this is reflected in most of his later plays. His other literary works include:

Plays

. The Swamp Dwellers,The Lion and the Jewel , The Trials of Brother Jero

. A Dance of the Forests ,The Strong Breed , Before the Blackout

. Kongi's Harvest, The Bacchae of Euripides The Road, Madmen and Specialists, Camwood on the Leaves, Jero's Metamorphosis, Death and the King's Horseman, Opera Wonyosi, Requiem for a Futurologist, A Play of Giants,

. A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play), From Zia, with Love,

. The Beatification of the Area Boy, King Baabu, Etiki Revu Wetin

Novels

. The Interpreters

. Season of Anomie

Memoirs

The Man Died : Prison Notes

Aké: The Years of Childhood

Isara: A Voyage around Essay

. Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: a Memoir 1946-65

. You Must Set Forth at Dawn

Poetry collections

. A Big Airplane Crashed Into The Earth (original title Poems from Prison)

. Idanre and other poems

. Mandela's Earth and other poems

. Ogun Abibiman

. Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known

. Abiku

. "After the Deluge"

. "Telephone Conversation"

Essays

. Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition

. Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture

. Myth, Literature and the African World

. "From Drama and the African World View"

. The Burden of Memory TheMuse of Forgiveness

Movies

. Culture in Transition

. Blues For a Prodigal

He established other theatre groups and won many awards. Soyinka is a theatre practitioner, a producer and a director. He directs virtually all his plays and presents them to local and international audience as he performs them in Nigeria and abroad.

3.3. Ola Rotimi

Ola Rotimi, a playwright and director was born in Sapele to an Ijaw mother and a Yoruba father. He studied in the United States of America and later returned to Nigeria. He taught as a lecturer mainly in Awolowo University and University of Port Harcourt.

Many Nigerians today remember Ola Rotimi mostly for one thing he is the author of The Gods are not to Blame. Since it was performed by the Ori Olokun Theatre in 1968, the play has become a household name as it is widely-read and performed, either as prescribed texts for students of literature in secondary schools/tertiary institutions or in performance in locations that range from school halls, arenas, proscenium stage in theatres or on the screen.

With a Nigerian government scholarship, Rotimi studied Fine Arts at Boston University and writing at the school of drama at the Yale University. He wrote his first two plays, To Stir the God of Iron (1963) and Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again (1966).

Ola Rotimi’s greatest contribution to the development of Nigerian drama is in his use of language, and the use of oral tradition and history. Although he was trained in the western theatre tradition, he incorporates his traditional Nigerian cultural forms, ethnic dances and indigenous language into his predominantly English language plays. In his plays, he often presents figures or incidents of historical importance in Nigeria in an effort to highlight the relevance of the past to contemporary issues.

Ola Rotimi is concerned, primarily, with reacting the “Nigerian audience at whatever level of competence in the English language in which they operate” (Obafemi 89). This explains the level of language he uses in his plays. His need to reach his audience and infuse the traditional forms in his plays, he prefers to produce them in the round, (see your course material on Theatre Workshop to remind you of the theatre in the round/arena), rather than on the proscenium stage. According to Rotimi “the arena setting is the only formation that approximates aboriginal theatre arrangement, at least in Africa. That is why I prefer to use it. (Rotimi 60) .

In terms of the language he uses, he explains:

English you know, is the official medium of communication in Nigeria. Inevitably I write for audiences who are knowledgeable in this language. However, in handling the English language in my plays, I strive to temper the phraseology to the ear of both the dominant semi-literate classes, as well as the literate classes, ensuring that my dialogue reaches out to both groups with ease in assimilation and clarity in identification. (62)

This is evident in most of his plays, especially in Hopes of the Living Dead and If where different Nigerian ethnic groups are represented in the play. In these plays pidgin is used freely for effective communication because Rotimi realises that “Nigeria is a multilingual nation but that this cannot hinder national unity” and also “the futility of trying to unite peoples who do not understand themselves” (Iwuchukwu 290). Effective communication helps in the reduction of “instances of mistrust and suspicion which breed rancor and misunderstanding among people (Iwuchukwu 291).

Ola Rotimi’s other plays include:

The Gods Are Not to Blame (1968), Ovonramwem Nogbaisi (1971) Hopes of the Living Dead (1985) If (1990), Man Talk, Woman Talk (I have seen the manuscript but not the published version).

Ola Rotimi died on August 18, 2000 at the age of 62.

3.4 Zulu Sofola

Onuekwuke Nwazuluoha (Zulu) Sofola was born in Isele-Ukwu, Aniocha, Delta State. She had her early education in Nigeria and a first degree in English and Masters degree in Drama at the Virginia Union University and Catholic University of America, Washington respectively. She worked as a lecturer mostly at the University of Ibadan, U.S.A. and University of Ilorin.

Zulu Sofola was the pioneer female dramatist in Nigeria and for a long time, one of the prominent female dramatists in Africa, alongside Ama Ata Aidoo and Efua Sutherland. She was not just the pioneer female playwright in Nigeria but for more than a decade she dominated the Nigerian dramatic scene as the only important female playwright and theatre practitioner.

The major criticism against Zulu Sofola is that she upholds tradition, thereby maintaining the status quo. She is accused of not using her plays to uphold the feminists ideals, especially in Wedlock of the Gods and The Sweet Trap. Mary Modupe Kolawole does not agree with this view. She believes that :

Zulu Sofola lived as an epitome of the dynamic African woman achiever who negotiated a space that corroborated her philosophy which maintained that African women should assert themselves positively instead of lamenting her marginalization (4).

Zulu Sofola herself corroborated this view when she asserts in an interview with Ezenwa- Ohaeto that the educated was clamouring for rights and privileges which the traditional woman has already and that what in the Sweet Trap for instance, what the educated woman “ …was asking for, could not make sense. We do not know what the woman in our tradition has and that is where our problem lies” (80).

Zulu Sofola contributed a lot to the development of Nigerian drama. She wrote and directed many plays. Her most popular plays are The Wizzard of Law and The Wedlock of the Gods. Her other plays are The Sweet Trap, Memories of Moonlight, King Emend, Old Wines Are Tasty, The Disturbed Peace of Christmas, The Song of a Maiden, The Love of Life, Queen Omar Alike of Limbo, Fantasies in the Moonlight, The Operators, Game, The Showers, Lost Dream and The Ivory Tower. She died on September 7, 1995 a few months after her husband’s death.

4.0 CONCLUSION

We saw in the last unit that the earliest form of literary drama in Nigeria is found among Onitsha Market pamphlets of the 1940s and 1950s. the playwrights of that era like Ogali A Ogali and Okinawa Elisa were men of modest education. They were joined later by the educated dramatist, James Ene Henshaw was the first educated playwright. In this unit, we have introduced the educated Nigerian foremost playwrights. These are J. P. Clark, Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi and Zulu Sofola. These playwrights treat issues of social concerns in their plays with materials drawn from mythology, legend, history and other forms of oral tradition. In many of the play, gods and the supernatural played important roles in the lives of the characters. Many of their plays support individual heroism as against the collective heroism of the revolt playwrights as you will see in the next unit. Ola Rotimi qualifies to be treated among the revolt playwrights but since he is one of the pioneers, I decided to treat him along his contemporaries.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, you have been introduced to the earliest educated playwrights in Nigeria. We have not treated any of their plays but inform you that the gods and the supernatural played important roles in the lives of the characters. They draw the materials for many of their plays from oral tradition of their people though they adopted the western theatrical modes. This is understandable because of the influence of western education. Many of them also studied abroad.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

List the four pioneer playwrights and at least three plays written by each of them.

8.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Ezenwa-Ohaeto (2003) Winging Words. Interviews with Nigerian Writers and Critics.

Lagos: Kraft Books.

Iwuchukwu, Onyeka (2004) “The Town Crier and the Quest for Social Justice” in Ola