INTRODUCTION
In this unit, we will study some new plays that reflect different forms from what has been in the years before. The theatrical practices of Soyinka and Clark-Bekederemo among others in the first generation dramatists in Nigeria reflect the basic imitative patterns of Europe and America. Their plays juxtaposed the African thoughts in Europeans style of art. However, the new playwrights have often evolved something different from their predecessors. They exploit African beliefs, environment, art, and life in the creation new forms of theatre. For instance, Ahmed Yerima, has written plays utilizing the Nigerian historical and mythical experiences covering almost all the ethnic divides. Sam Ukala propounded the theory of Folkist theatre. It is a theatrical form of drama using the folktale tradition as yardstick. Their plays reflect new forms of theatricality.
3.1 General Overview
In Nigeria, theatre is a reflection of life. Right from the pre-colonial, pre-literate days, it has been in existence and it is reflected in the people’s festivals, rituals, mythology and other forms of social engagements. The typical African is bound to frown on theatre as entertainment because, to him, it transcends that. It is a medium through which he reaches out to, or better still, courts the supernatural world and certain enigmatic developments or phenomena of life in order to transcend them. However, the African man’s contact with the colonial world has eroded some of the importance attached to certain African values. Exposure to education and other seemly more refined religious practices has diminished, significantly, the importance that was once attached to certain beliefs and notions. Today, the story has changed. Nigerian playwrights in the years before and immediately after independence wrote to correct certain misconceptions about her people. Others wrote to magnify and eulogize those aspects of the Nigerian culture that promote good will and social harmony.
Wole Soyinka, no doubt, is a master of his art. He has commanded attention, both at home and abroad. His literary activities cut across the diverse genres of literary writing. When, in 1986, he won the laureate, not too many people were taken unawares. Since Soyinka, however, a good number of literary activities both in writing and performance have taken place in the Nigerian society – major playwrights and theatre practitioners whose work cannot just be wished away, have emerged. Foremost among the emergent playwrights is Fémi Òsófisan, who has been widely acclaimed as the next literary giant that the Nigerian literary society is producing after Soyinka. Other pronounced and highly acclaimed dramatists and theatre arts practitioners who are coeval with Femi Osofisan include Ola Rotimi, Bode Sowande, Zulu Sofola, Tunde Fatunde, Wale Ogunyemi, Olu Obafemi, Bode Osanyin, Ben Tomoloju, Sam Ukala, Tess Onwueme and a host of others. These are all theatre arts dramatists and practitioners who have caused ripples in recent Nigerian theatre history. Not any one of the aforementioned has less than a dozen published plays – and they are still writing and publishing.
Femi Osofisan is famed for plays like Morountodun, No More the Wasted Breed, Midnight Hotel, Aringindin and the Night Watchmen, Midnight Blackout, Once Upon 4 Robbers, Who’s Afraid of Solarin?, Another Raft and a host of others. In his repertory are about fifty published plays. He continues to write and publish. He is, perhaps, the most performed playwright in Nigeria today. A folklorist dramatist, Femi Osofisan approaches the diverse problems that confront man in his society, in parables and song. His language is easy to comprehend and his style amenable to different tastes and experiments. The fluidity of his style of writing makes virtually all of his works the choice of theatre houses both within and outside the academia.
Ola Rotimi is reputed for his lingual experimentations, profoundly conscious of the multilingual nature of the Nigerian society, Rotimi a kind of theatre that would meet the yearnings of all major ethnic groupings in the Nigerian society. In plays like Hopes of the Living Dead and If… A Tragedy of the Ruled , this becomes immediately obvious. Hitherto, influences on Rotimi at the early stage of his literary writings are traceable to the Classical and the absurdist traditions. One is, therefore, not surprised that his earlier plays like The Gods are not to Blame and Holding Talks follow these great theatre traditions. Perhaps aware that these traditions did not meet the social and political immediacy which his art was later to command, he turned a little bit to the left in his later plays. His Man Talk, Woman Talk and Tororo are more of social commentaries on the Nigerian situation while his comedy, Our Husband has gone Mad Again is more of a political satire – a grotesque revelation of happenings within the continent’s political landscape even years after political independence had been achieved.
Zulu Sofola is an indisputable neo-Classical writer. Most of her plays are modeled along the Classical concept of tragedy. She adopts this approach in plays like Wedlock of the gods and King Emene among others, to reprimand man for his hubris. Man, she contends, will always be brought back to where he truly belongs as long as pride remains in him. However, Sofola’s later plays like The Sweet Trap and Song of a Maiden are a radical departure from the tradition which she has always adored. Respectively, the two plays deal with the woman question and where she truly belongs in the society in a radically different manner. One would have expected Zulu Sofola, a frontline woman leader, activist and female writer, to use her plays to propagate the ideals of womanhood and then scream equality or women liberation from the roof-tops the way some contemporary feminist writers and performing artists are wont to do, but no; this is not to be with a Sofola. She insists that though women should possess certain rights in the society, feminism, as presently advocated and propagated, which places the woman at par with her male folk would, definitely, not make for a good social equilibrium. A woman should aspire to any height in the society in her numerous endeavours and she is free to possess limitless ambitions but this should not make her blind to the realities of her existence; she should assist her husband to build a better society, not dictate to him. She can pursue her ambitions and yet maintain her position at home as the officer in-charge of domestic affairs. The man is expected to support his wife and encourage her of her dreams, not lord things over her. This is the panacea for the present turbulence in contemporary society. Instead of feminism, as is currently being trumpeted, therefore, womanism should be advocated. Feminism is antithetical to the spirit of the African woman.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Carefully discuss the background to Nigerian theatre practice that led to the present new forms.
3.2 Political Drama: Niyi Osundare’s The State Visit
Niyi Osundare is better known as a poet. He is one of the finest poets from Nigeria for the past two decades. The State Visit is his first play. It is a Stage Drama published by Kraft Books in 2002 but first performed by The Creativity Workshop at the Arts Theatre of the University of Ibadan in 1997. The genre chosen for expression by the writer is a sartorial comedy. The play is a satirical attack on the political odds in Nigeria. Many Nigerian playwrights consider it a point of social responsibility to discuss the issue of the excesses of the military leaders and Osundare is no exception. Wole Soyinka’s King Baabu, Wole Oguntokun’s Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka? and Deji Toye’s Botching of a Brute are some examples of plays attacking the excesses of the military in Nigeria.
The location is the fictional Yanke, which appears to be a thin veil for Nigeria itself and the antagonists are the ruler of the country simply known as “Head” and his entire cabinet of ministers. The Head and his ministers prepare for a state visit by a ruler of a neighbouring country, Wilama, hence the title of the drama, a visitor known by many names including the “Son of the Leopard, Descendant of the Towering Giraffe, Offshoot of a warrior family … ” among many others.
The cabinet of Yanke, an obsequious crew that follows its leader, the Hyena of Yanke to the point of absurdity in his various schemes are given curious characters by the playwright bordering on the farcical. The Minister in charge of Public Morality is female but spends time engaging in touching and being touched in sensitive areas of her body by the Minister of Agriculture, all these taking place during cabinet meetings. It appears the Minister of Agriculture whose ministry is deprived of money designed to keep the masses from starvation is a form of the former Roman Emperor Nero who fiddled as Rome burnt. This minister has no problem with the impending starvation but finds the threat of hunger to the people amusing. The Minister simply known as “Agric” says: “What future are you talking about?” The future is not the problem now. When it comes, it will take care of itself. Let us eat and be merry today. Why should we bother about tomorrow? You can only grab what you see.”
The Minister of External Affairs is lent more intelligence than the entirety of the cabinet combined, indicating to the reader that sometimes, the dictator-rulers of Africa often add members of the intelligentsia and academia to their ranks, people who should know better but instead become willing aides in the continuous pillaging of the African continent.
The voice of conscience in the cabinet of Yanke’s government is the Minister of finance who makes his opposition known to his fellow cabinet members and the Head of Yanke. He then walks out on the cabinet and is replaced by a more unscrupulous and opportunistic Finance minister. It is unlikely that in reality, any finance minister could state his opposition plainly to a ruler like the Head. Opposition is not accepted lightly by people of this ilk, is regarded as a personal affront and extreme and final steps are taken against those regarded as disloyal.
Sanni Abacha of Nigeria (who appears to be the Head) and Idi Amin Dada of Uganda are examples of the reactions of maniacs in power.
There is an official journalist for the Head and his ministers and the extremes gone to, so as to be perfect in the pictures taken are absurd, ridiculing the entire cabinet. It appears that the main pattern of satirizing the excesses of African and particularly Nigerian leaders is farce. The journalist represents those that fiercely opposed the Head but who were bought over by subtle threats and the largesse given by the government to those it tries to silence. The question to be asked here is, “Does everyone have a prize?”
Even today, in modern day Nigeria, it is obvious that parallels may be drawn between the cabinet of Yanke, deaf to the entreaties and sufferings of its people and the ruling government in Modern day Nigeria peppered with members of the ruling political parties. The discontented people of Yanke are represented by a selection of beggars, students, workers and a discontented painter who refuses to use his skills for preparing for the visit of the neighbouring ruler. The beggars tell their own stories of how they have been betrayed by the state, left to fend for themselves in extreme deprivation. It is obvious that Yanke is a failed state, lacking all forms of welfare for its people and the similarity to the Nigerian situation is extremely disturbing to this reader.
One of the beggars becomes an alms-receiver as a result of an accident with a piano he was helping to unload. The Piano itself, an instrument of cultural enlightenment meant for his master‘s daughter, falls on him as he helps with the unloading, and causes him the use of his limbs. The master, representing the upper class does not see to his welfare and subsequently he becomes a beggar. The symbolism of the piano as an instrument of subjection and repression is a striking one. The painter (or creative person) who refuses to work for the Lion of Yanke fearlessly calls the entire cabinet derogatory names to their faces. He refers to them as tyrants and vampires but the Head chooses to remain obtuse, not understanding what is being said. When the cabinet finally realizes the “artistic” insults of the painter, the ensuing rage costs the painter his life.
The State Visit does not take place; at least in the play as the people violently resist the excesses of the Lion of Yanke. The Narrator is left to finish the story in the end, saying that “Yanke will never be the same again” and indeed the songs of opposition are heard continuing despite the deaths of several citizens at the hands of the law enforcement agents of Yanke. The Narrator who set us on the path to an understanding of the play ends the performance and it appears as if the future of Yanke is in the hands of the people and whether they will choose to react or be silent. One wonders if this is a call to revolution by the playwright. For those who might think all revolutions are calls to anarchy, we must remember that we have seen the success of a rose revolution where no shots were fired but where the people took back the reins of government from undeserving leaders.
The writer seems to be comfortable with a didactic approach, one where lessons are taught and learned and indeed the entire play through its Narrator, plot, twists and the development of its characters teaches moral development all the way. The helplessness and frustration of the citizens in the country today are well thought out and a way out is revealed by the playwright. The people must speak up and reclaim what is theirs or die in the throes of tyranny.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Carefully assess Osundare’s exposition of military dictatorship in The State Visit.
3.3 Historical Drama: Yerima’s The Trial of Oba Ovonramwen (1997)
The Trials by Ahmed Yerima is another historical version of the great punitive invasion of Benin and The Trial of the Chiefs who killed White men in the Phillips party. Unlike the two plays above, this play starts with Ovonramwen tell-ing his own story with a melancholic anger: Here I am seated in my glory… how can I discredit myself when the truth is that the story will never be written well if I don’t tell you myself… the white men. He desired my Empire and envied my position and wanted my throne… (19) The overzealousness of the Acting Consul-General Phillips is the next dramatic action and this dialogue of his below expresses the desire of the British Empire:
There you are. The great Benin Empire, I need you… you extend to Otun in the north, Asaba in the east, and Lagos in the west. The British Empire must have you in order to have the whole Niger area under its grasp. And it must be now… (21)
Phillips’ action negates the advice given to him by District Commissioner Bur-rows, who says that the intelligence report from Eyebokan (one of their moles in Oba’s palace) did not recommend them to enter Benin at that time, especially when the Oba and his people were celebrating one of their sacred festivals. How-ever, Phillips insists on entering Benin because of his own inordinate ambition, “I must take Benin for the glory of the British Empire and mine.” In an overlapping order the following scenario makes
The Trials a captivating play: Ologbosere, Ovonramwen’s father-in law, builds his loyalty on the Oba, the oracle of Uhe’s warning and the inevitability of the destruction of Benin city, Obaseki and Omatshola also report to the Oba the situation at Warri with Ovonramwen expressing his suspicion and doubt of the integrity of Obaseki about state affairs, Eyebokan delivers Phillips’ message of his intended visit as regards the Trade Treaty, the chiefs of Benin discuss the issue of the uninvited visitors and the need for them not to visit Benin, Uzazakpo recounts his dream to Ovonramwen and how the colour of the white- man frightens him. The dramatic conflict of the play becomes visible when Ovonramwen demands the white men and Ologbosere says that, “Dead, we killed the white men”. Obiro, the Court Seer, informs Ovonramwen that he cannot do anything to avert the impending disaster, Ovonramwen also warns Iyase to be a good umpire for he hears through Obiro that: “… My son Aiguobasimwin in a wrestling contest with an older wrestler, the price was my crown” (56). Obaseki’s supposed classical betrayal of the Benin people becomes exposed through his discussion with Carter in the play after the fall of Benin:
Obaseki: Not enough
Carter: What do you need then?
Obaseki: Some authority. I need something new. Some powers so that he can believe me. The Oba must know that when I am talking to him it is with power …
Carter: I see your point. Then you must go as a representative of Her Majesty’s government.
Obaseki: Yes. Very good
As the most senior Bini man with British Empire here in Bini Country. (60) Consul-General Moor is the judge and the prosecutor in the Trial Scene with Obaseki supporting every move of the British Officers in the trial. Ovonramwen makes obeisance to the British Monarch without his crown, which he gives to Chief Obaseki in trust. Idiaghe dies in the play for telling lies against the Oba and Chief Obaiuwana commits suicide after he is arrested during the trial. Moor finally delivers his judgment:
Yes. Let it be entered that… the Oba did not order the massacre. Let Ologbosheri, Obaradesagbon, Uso, Obakhavbaye and Ugiade guilty and hereby sentences them to death. (77)
Ovonramwen is dethroned and banished to Calabar and he ends the play that he starts by accepting the fate that befalls him: … Take me whiteman. Take me…For the love of Bini, Take me…To the royal valley…Where the gods await their sacrifice. (79)
The theme of this play includes; overweening ambition, conspiracy, deceit, disloyalty, disobedience, partiality and fate. The text explicitly create practical impressions about the story of Oba Ovonramwen; the political scenario that leads to the massacre of the Phillips Party, the great invasion, the celebration of the Igue festival, the warning of the oracle of Uhe, the intrigue and deceit that follow the coronation of Ovonramwen, Ologbosere’s unflinching patriotism and loyalty to the Benin Kingdom and their Oba, Phillips’ overzealousness, the big trial and the revenge tragedy that follows it and the subsequent banishment and dethronement of Ovonramwen to Calabar. Throughout the play, Ovonramwen is presented as a strong defender of tradition who also understands the scheming of the British Monarch to gain control over his kingdom as other stronger Empires and Kingdoms have fallen honourably to the British Government. With caution, however, he strongly warns his people to protect the white men against any form of intimidation or attack: The ceremony must wait… I shall see them … you follow Eyebokan to the camp of the white men. See their leader called Phillips. Tell him that I shall receive him. Eyebokan, how many white men are in the party? (The Trials … 37) Ovonramwen’s diplomatic overtures are at variance with the overzealousness of the white men who think that Benin must fall if the entire Niger-Delta area must be under their firm control.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Comment on the historical accuracy in the play The Trials of Oba Ovonramwen.
3.4 A New Theory: Sam Ukala’s Folkist Dramatic Theory
Sam Ukala is well known literary scholar, theater arts practitioner and dramatic theorist. He has written several known plays where his theory of folkism is put to practice. Some of his popular plays include The Slave Wife, Akpakaland, The Log in your Eyes, The placenta of Death etc. Ukala’s thought provoking essay, “Oral Literature, Development and National Integration” is a confirmation of his firm standing that the developmental potentials of our oral traditional literature have not been fully and properly explored and exploited by contemporary Nigeria. It is, therefore, a seeming extension of the argument of the earlier considered “Literature and Governance” and a further authentication of Ukala’s strong belief that a recourse to the oral traditions is one effective panacea to Nigeria’s multi-varied problems as a nation. A curious statement made by Ukala in the two essays reviewed so far is that an enduring ideological standpoint should be relevant to a vast array of issues within and outside a discipline, and, even more importantly, should proffer solutions to humanity’s many problems. These essays are, by and large, a certification of the fact that a subscription to the folk resonates in most of Ukala’s writings, as stated earlier in this paper.
Ukala holds that the oral traditional art forms should be desperately deployed to put aright everything written literature which its imperialist backgrounds and negative aftermaths have destroyed in Africa. The above opinion is founded on Ukala’s conviction, that “Western literature was the tool by which the African mind was shackled by the colonialists.” With the example of Ika folktales, Kwagh-hir stories, the masquerade performances of the Efik, the Kwa, the Ibibio, the Egugu of Illah, the Ikaki masquerade of the Kalabari and the oral poetry of various traditional societies of Africa, Ukala is able to prove that oral literature could provide the escape route for Nigeria from its many socio-political and economic woes.
In this essay too, he reminds us that this formula has worked for both the French and the Russians. In the final analysis, he recommends: "Nigerian government should take a cue from France and Russia and champion the renaissance of Nigerian oral literature and, thereafter, encourage Nigerian writers to reinvent modern Nigerian literature with a view to making it perform among its audience the same roles performed by oral literature among the rural populace. The governments, through their ministries of Arts, Culture and Tourism, must tackle the great task..."
Unarguably, Sam Ukala’s most remarkable and enduring contribution to literary/dramatic scholarship in Nigeria (Africa) is his theoretical postulation of “folkism” which according to him is, “the tendency to base literary plays on the history, culture, and concerns of the folk … and to compose and perform them in accordance with African conventions for composing and performing the folktale.” This theoretical framework, which has been given flesh in some of his plays, most notably, the hugely popular Akpakaland, has negotiated a high rating for Ukala among African scholars of the theatre, as he joins the exclusive league of literary theorists who have demonstrated enormous commitment to the job of carving a new authentic aesthetic identity for African literature.
Thus, Ukala must have satisfied a major craving of African literature, especially as most articulately outlined by the redoubtable critic of African literature, Professor Charles E. Nnolim: … the task facing all of us in the 80’s (is) to build up carefully and painstakingly a poetics, a theory of African literature. We need a scholar or a group of scholars with the synthesizing mind of an Aristotle to build for us a poetics of African literature whose uniqueness is no longer a matter for debate, whose vital juices are fed with uniquely African orature.
Thus, Ukala’s success with the seminal essay “Folkism: Towards a National Aesthetic Principle For Nigerian Dramaturgy” in the context of African literature tallies with the accomplishments of fellow dramatic theorists, Wole Soyinka (Myth, Literature and the African World), Biodun Jeyifo (The Truthful Lie: Essays in a Sociology of African Drama), poetry critic, Sunday Anozie, (Christopher Okigbo: Creative Rhetoric), occidentalist Chinweizu, Ihechukwu Madubuike and Onwuchekwa Jemie (Toward the Decolonization of African Literature) and prose critic Ernest Emenyonu (The Rise of the Igbo Novel).
From all indications, Ukala intends the theory of Folkism to fill a vital lacuna in African drama- that that has to do with making African drama more audience-friendly and, consequently, more effective in helping to combat Nigeria’s socio-economic and political problems. Folkism appears inspired by what Ukala has identified as fundamental lapses in the dramaturgy of Nigeria’s most prominent playwrights- Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan and J.P. Clark-Bekederemo. He charges Soyinka and Clark-Bekederemo with dabbling in unnecessary esoterism and abstraction, and Osofisan with a misdirected manipulation of myth, especially, the Moremi in Morountodun.
Against the backdrop of what Ukala perceives as dramatic miscalculations, he recommends the concept of “folkism”, an aesthetic direction which seeks to impress the cruciality of the resources of the traditional African folktale on African drama. He says: “Apart from the Africa folktale’s capacity for clear communication and its popularity among the folk, there are other reasons why it should provide a matrix for folkism. The folktale and the literary play are narratives, ultimately realized in performance.”
Both are largely secular- unlike most African ritual and festival performances- and also temporal, mimetic, interpretative, and synthetic. Perhaps, to validate Ukala’s concern for the folk in African theatre, one has to mention that certain other scholars of the African theatre share in the sensibility of operating a literary drama institution that carries the entirety of the people along.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Folkism is a blend of folktale in dramaturgy. Discuss the folktale narrator as a one man theatre
4.0 CONCLUSION
The new playwrights write and perform committed arts. They write and act for correction. They reveal the image and function of the writer as griot and raconteur, the sole characteristics of which they are practitioners. Indeed many of the dramatists of the 'new generation' tell Africa's story in costume, sound, mime and movement in a manner whose physical representation forcibly engages the consciousness. There is a radical, even revolutionary project, a robust belief that the theatre is not just a house of speeches and props, but also a battleground for contending images and ideas. Wole Soyinka remains an enormous and highly seminal influence. But for the generation after him he has been both a venerable model and fertile point of departure. Thus, he is many ways the relationship of the 'new' generation to Soyinka's dramaturgy has been somewhat problematic. The plays treated here under the new generation playwrights represent the thematic and the stylistic forms of this age. Osundare takes a punch at the odds of politics, militarism and parochialism which are the major thematic concern of the playwrights of this time. Yerima’s The Trials of Oba Ovonramwen represents the vast historical plays which the playwrights have been enacting. However, there are no dramatist theorist within the new generation range except Sam Ukala and a few others. They are more concerned with acting than with theorizing. Thus, Sam Ukala’s ‘Folkist theory’ is a welcome contribution to this new playwrights’ artistic development.
5.0 SUMMARY
In the 'new generation' drama, history re-connects with mythology and a reinterpretation of both yields a reality which provides a handle on the present and the future. This is evident in the plays under study here. In The State Visit, we Osundare’s reenactment of history in a fiction form.
We see the playwright’s attempt at using history in the presenting of Nigeria’s past and future impediments. Yerima’s The Trials of Oba Ovonramwen is a continuation of anti-colonial attacks on the after effects of colonialism in Africa. Using the conquest of Benin kingdom, he makes a case for carefulness in the way and manner; Africans assume and adopt those things that impinge on the development of Africa. Ukala’s theory of folkism is like an oasis in this dry theoryless generation. Ukala’s theory has influenced several plays the way Soyinka influenced his contemporaries.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Answer the following questions carefully:
1. Explain the major thrusts of the new playwrights in Nigeria.
2. Discuss the presentation of dictatorship in Osundare’s The State Visit.
3. Assess Yerima’s The Trials as anti-colonial play in the new spirit.
4. Theories guide creativity. Trace the influence of Ukala’s ‘Folkist’ theory in the plays of the new playwrights.
5. Using any other play of your choice, discuss the use of new forms in the new plays from Nigeria.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Osundare, Niyi (2001). The State Visit. Ibadan: Kraft.
Ukala, Sam. “Oral Literature, Development and National Integration” .
--- --- ---. “Folkism: Towards a National Aesthetic Principle for
Nigerian Dramaturgy” .
Yerima, Ahmed (1997). The Trial of Oba Ovonramwen. Ibadan:
Longman.
Leave a comment behind