CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN DRAMA

The origins of African drama are not different from Greek

drama or European drama. In general Aristotle in his Poetics traces

the origin of Greek drama to the communal celebration of

Dionysus which gave place to formal acting. The plays of

Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus belong to the formal and

written tradition of drama. African societies traditionally celebrated

harvest and agricultural seasons with song and dance. The entire

community participated in the performance. People wore masks,

sported traditional ‘agbada’ and sang and danced to the

accompaniment of drums and hours besides the command

performance, there was also the tradition of story telling. Often the

story-teller chose a story of a mythological character or a historical

character whose life and adventure forward the basis for his

narration. It is to be noted that the story-teller played the role of a

central character and the other characters as well. Thus he was

playing the twin roles of narrator and actor.

Unlike a modem play which is time bound and which is

governed by classical rules of the comities of time, place and

action. The African oral performance lasted for several nights and

the audience sat through the performance. Not only the narrator

lived the role he played, but also made the audience identify with

the character he represented and thus there was a close relationship

between the actor and the audience.

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An other important development in the history of African

drama is that festival drama and natural theatre which for a long

time confined to their respective communities later evolved into

traveling companies. Joel Adedeji who has worked on Yoruba

theatre discusses the basis of the traveling companies and suggests

that they had derived from “Alarinjo” theatre, traveling group of

entertainers which grew out of the Yoruba court and cult performances after 16, 17, 18 centuries”1 Like other cultural

activities in Nigeria, organized drama is in its infancy. It may be

argued that drama is part of the life of the people that social

functions, religious ceremonies and traditional festivals lend

themselves easily to dramatic performances. But in the past these

were not well organized; in the absence of written plays and

national theatres, not much could be achieved. It is only about

twenty years ago that we saw any attempt to organize drama. A

beginning was made with folk-opera.

Folk-OperaThis is drama in which music and dancing play an important part,

since folk-opera is a means of communication as well as an outlet

for emotion. But it is usually looked upon as a sort of popular

entertainment which treats any topics from social satires, biblical

stories and political events to historical tragedies. There are many

folk-opera groups in Nigeria today and because their plays are

presented in the vernacular they are very popular with the masses.

This has not always been so; it was necessary for the pioneers in

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this field to work hard to satisfy the taste of their audience and

overcome many obstacles.

Hubert Ogunde’s is the foremost among a very large number

of traveling theatre companies. His theatre shows the influence of

western dramatic modes combined with the ‘Alarinjo theatre’. The

Egungun and Gelede, masquerades and the music traditions of the

different kingdoms in Yoruba land exercised a great deal of

influence. It is Ogunde who started the dialogue drama. Ogunde’s

theatre reflected the modes of the people of western Nigeria

between 1946 and 1966. He changed the style, the forum and the

content of his work to suit the territory in which he performed. He

concretized a number of political issues through characterization

and story to Yoruba audience. In all that he performed there is

Ogunde’s personality There are four phases in the development of

Ogunde’s theatre: -

1) The phase of cultural nationalism from 1944-50

2) The consolidation of the company through independence

from 1954-64

3) The post independence party polities 1964-66 and

4) The company since the civil war 1972 and later.

Though Ogunde’s first plays were folk opera meant for the

church, his plays Strike and Hunger performed in 1945 had

political dimension. Another play of his Tiger’s Empire also

attacked colonialism. The company he started called the African

Music Research party indicated Ogunde’s interest in Yoruba music

which had been downgraded by the colonialists. He produced plays

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throughout West Africa between 1945and 76 and made his roots in

traditional festival drama quite clear.

‘I was playing drums with the masquerades

in home town when I was young and these

Egungun people gave me the arch inside me>%

to start a company of actors’.

Ogunde’s Yoruba folk opera uses all the resources of a

drumming orchestra, flutes and drums, dancing, mime, and it is

sung in Yoruba by role actors. It used a variety of subjects - tribal

myth, biblical story, social and political satire, entertainment etc.

The Yoruba audiences admired them because they reflected the

desire for a creation for a modem state free from colonialism.

A year later Ogunde changed the name of his company to

Ogunde Theatre Company but the themes were moralistic;

colonialism was shown to be immoral. In 1947 Ogunde established

the Ogunde Record Company which recorded and marketed his

songs. He also extended his theatre company into regularly

traveling group between 1945 and 1947.

After Nigerian independence Ogunde formed the Ogunde

dance company and traveled overseas. In this period he wrote his

famous play Yoruba Ronu which was about the political quarrel in

the western region of Nigeria. The play was very critical of

politicians and so his entire company was banned. The Ogunde’s

concert party was declared unlawful which was revoked later in

1966. In 1972 Ogunde started Ogunde Theatre Company. He

revamped his earlier hope in operas and Half and Half was greatly

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appreciated by Yoruba audiences. His later play Murtala was a

blind play free from political reference and cultural nationalism.

Ogunde’s contribution to the Development of African Drama is

best summed up by Etherton thus:

“Ogunde’s theatre company Is Hubert Ogunde His theatre is a

Yoruba theatre, performed in Yoruba which embraces wit and

poetry. The fans come to see and hear him: and to an outsider

it appears that no member of his cast can steal the focus of the

audience for him. This is the essence; it seems, of the most

successful of the traveling theatres: the creation of

‘personality’ a unique person, through whom Yoruba of all

walks of life can find central image of their contemporary

world. Ogunde is the entertainer, the successful business man,

the cherished head of the family. He is now frequently

described as the father of Nigerian theatre. It is probably more

accurate to describe him more generally as a father-figure, an

embodiment of success, and his art as a popular expression of Yoruba sensibility”.3

Next in importance after Ogunde is Cola-Ogunmola whose

contribution to the development of African theatre is considerable.

His plays Palm wine drinkard, Love of Money and conscience are

moralistic in the manner of Ogunde. It is often pointed out that his

plays are, superficial. By contrast, Duro Ladipo’s plays have fine

structure and they are an imagination dramatization of key Yoruba

myths. His play Oba ko so combines symbolism, both in the

dialogue and spectacle on the stage. Although Ladipo toured with

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his company performing his plays he was not as popular as other

theatre personalities because his plays were consciously artistic.

Nevertheless he is likely to be remembered for the written text

Everyman Eda.

The most recent theatre personality who has started a

traveling theatre is Moses Olaiya Adejumo popularly known as

Baba Sala. Like Ogunde he established a member of successful

enterprises besides his main theatre company. His theatre is more

eclectic than Ogunde’s. He has brought in number of popular

elements into the theatre. He established his particular style and the

important contribution of Baba Sala is the transformation of

Yoruba theatre into an urban theatre.

The 1960’s saw establishment of department of theatre arts

of the school of music and drama in the universities. A number of

universities in Nigeria started courses in drama and theatre studies

aimed at rediscovering African personality often long years of

colonial domination through a revival of African culture. Thanks to

the influence of classical and European drama African plays have

been modeled after Greek plays Sophocles, King Oedipus was

transposed as The gods are not to blame The Nigerian playwright

used king Oedipus as the basis but gave it a Yoruba setting. This is

the beginning of the change from drama as performance to drama

as literature. The plays of Wole Soyinka and J. P Clark afford less

scope for traditional performances although they have not totally

abandoned Yoruba performance traditions. This is due to the fact

that both Wole Soyinka and J. P Clark had been educated in

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missionary schools and government colleges where English

literature was taught. Soyinka and Clark were contemporaries and

though they belong to different regions and sects, yet they were

exposed to nearly similar academic courses.

The New DramaDeveloping side by side with folk-opera is what is usually referred

to as ‘The new drama’. This is an attempt by educated Nigerians to

set up national theatres in which plays written by Nigerians can be

produced by Nigerians. Most of these plays utilize Western

techniques but make them serve local needs. These plays are all

about Nigeria, and their construction deviates very much from

orthodox European ideas. It seems that here the foundation of a

national theatre is being laid. Many drama groups are co-operating

to achieve this objective. We have time here to discuss briefly only

a few of the most important ones.

The 1960 MasksThis group was formed by Wole Soyinka in 1960 very close to the

date of Nigerian independence. It contains some of the most

talented Nigerian actors and actresses, but unfortunately they are

busy people and can spare only a small proportion of their time for

stage-acting. This group has not been doing as well as was

originally anticipated, since some members of the group got

married and left, whilst others were promoted and considered the

stage below them. It is surprising that, with such frequent changes

in its membership, the 1960 Masks have been able to accomplish

anything at all. Yet the group has been able to stimulate interest in

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drama and to show that the stage can be used as an instrument of

social change. It has also demonstrated that stage-acting is not a

pastime reserved only for irresponsible or unemployed members of

the community, as was formerly generally believed. Connecting the

names of respected members of society with drama has helped in

no small way to enhance the prestige of actors in society. The 1960

Masks have successfully produced A Dance of the Forests, Dear

Parent and Ogre and The Republican.

The original aim of the group, which was to keep a

professional nucleus of actors working all the time, has not been

achieved. But the Orisun Theatre formed later by Wole Soyinka

may be helpful in training young people for the stage. Already it

has produced two of Wole Soyinka’s plays The Lion and the Jewel

and The Trials of Brother Jero, and a few satires such as his Before

the Blackout. The Orisun Theatre is becoming more and more

involved in social and political satires and its present effort is so

spasmodic that the fate of the 1960 Masks may be repeated. What

is needed now is for serious plays to be produced. A talented group

should be able to produce many such plays a year.

University of Ibadan Traveling Theatre This is sponsored by the School of Drama, University of Ibadan,

but membership is open to all students of the university who are

interested in drama. Initially, this group concerned itself mainly

with the production of scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. But it

influenced the growth of drama in a big way when it produced a

stage adaptation of Danda, a novel by Nkem Nwankwo, This was

the first major contribution of any department at a university to the

new Nigerian drama and appeared too many to reveal the

university’s concern for the development of drama in Nigeria.

Danda was taken too many parts of the country and was acted each

time before large audiences. The actors showed greatly improved

techniques and dramatic skill; the stage management was excellent.

The sound knowledge of stagecraft revealed here is sure to have an

invigorating effect on Nigerian drama. This group has much to

offer in the way of Nigerian drama. It is unfortunate that they do

not produce plays more often and travel round to the regions more

frequently.

The Eastern Nigeria Theatre GroupThis group is directed by John Ekwere, a playwright and producer.

It was originally known as the Ogui Players and at first it

concentrated on adaptations. But it now produces original Nigerian

plays and achieved fame with its successful production of J. P.

Clark’s Song of a Goat

The work and achievement of Wole Soyinka is larger than

any other Nigerian writer including J. P. Clark. His work shows a

marked contrast in terms of themes and techniques. He was a poet,

a playwright, human rights activist. As a political activist, Soyinka

satirized the colonial rule in a number of plays. He was equally

opposed to the post independence regines which were tyrannical

and corrupt. His revolt against political authoritarianism often

made him face hardships including imprisonment. He sympathized

with black people’s movement against racial discrimination but he

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was not a champion of negritude. The award of the Nobel Prize in

1986 was a result of recognition which he compelled by a sheer

genius of his work. Some of his works include plays - The lion and

the jewel, The swamp dwellers, Madmen and specialists, Death

and the King’s Horseman, Jero ’s metamorphosis, Trials of brother

Jero... Novels - The interpreters, poems, to name a few.

J. P. Clark’s work is not as large as Soyinka’s but it is nearer

to African life. His works include plays - The masquerade, The

raft, Ozidi, The song of a goat, books - America Their America,

and poems such as Abiku Fulani cattle, Agbor Dancer, The

imprisonment Obatala - and so on.

Contemporary African drama is the most difficult to

integrate into modem African life because most African

communities have highly developed drama traditions that are

embedded in local oral and religious traditions. In traditional

Africa, festival drama represented the height of individual and

communal self-expression, and was not encouraged by Western

education or Christianity. Within traditional African life, every art

form gravitated toward festival drama. Both the individual and

his/her community collaborated to articulate, emphasize,

communicate, and transfer core knowledge, values, and aesthetics

during those performances.

The festival drama was among the first African traditions to

come under attack by Western officials during the colonial period.

In many cases, conversion to Christianity or school admission

depended on whether the African would stop participating in this

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method of communal self-expression. In the colonial and mission

schools, the systematic separation among African languages, oral

narratives, and the multimedia expressive performances of the

festival drama isolated Western-educated school children from

their non-Westem-educated counter parts. The new African

“converts” ignorance of traditional African was later

complemented with the introduction of contemporary African

drama in the schools and churches: most Western-educated

Africans or still encouraged to view the traditional festival drama

as a nonprogressive, stagnant form.

Frequently, drama meant presentations of scenes from

colonialist reading materials and Western-educated Africans’

experiences within the new dispensation. Consequently, local

communities, including schoolchildren, saw “plays” as foreign,

unreal, and fantastic (re) presentations with no immediate or

relevant social functions. That ‘feeling persists today as projects

such as Theater for Development, in which Western and local

sponsors try to use theater to teach contemporary African

communities how to live viable lives, consistently fail. Theater for

Development addresses such issues as personal and community

health practices, crime prevention, education, abortion, AIDS, and

other topics of interest to sponsors. The major difference between

this approach and traditional festival drama is the lack of

spontaneity: neither the theatric forms nor many of the required

performance tools grow naturally from the people’s attitudes,

beliefs or practices. This does not mean that contemporary theater

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is ineffective but its methodologies tend to deny African

communities their right to provide their experiences with relevant

and compelling origins, possibilities, problems and solutions.

Contemporary scholars, however, are beginning to look

again at the role and function of the mimetic dance of

masquerades, performances like the Yoruba egungun and

gelede, the Igo egwugwu and mbari, and other traditional and

ritualized depictions of African life across the continent. The

problem is that for most artists and producers, these ritualized

depictions are still seen largely as props rather than as essential

elements in contemporary African drama’s engagement or

dissemination of African thought, life, and experience,

significantly this means that African dramatic practice is no

longer ignored by artists, as contemporary dramatists continue

to find ways to advance African thought on stage and in film, television, and video productions.4

Although the excerpts included here are not

representative of all that obtains on the continent, they provide the

reader with some insights about what is important to the African

playwright. From traditional attitudes and thoughts about marriage

(wa Thiong’o) to issues of contemporary leadership (Al-Hakim),

the reader becomes aware of the artists commitment to portray the

intricate relationships between all areas of thought and action in

continental African life and experience.

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REFERENCES

1. Michael Etherton. The Development of African Drama,

Hutchinson University Library for Africa London, 1981, p.35

2. Oyin Ogunba and Aviola Irele. Theatre in Africa,Ibadan

University Press, Ibadan, 1978, p.49.

3. Etherton, p.48

4. Romanus N Egudu. Four Modern West African Poets,

NewYork: Nok Publishers, 1977, p.25.