15-21 SEPTEMBER 2013
AISCLI SUMMER SCHOOL: WORLD CULTURES AND LITERATURES IN ENGLISH
Soyinka vs Osofisan. Issues in English-speaking Nigerian Drama
Tiziana Morosetti (University of Oxford)
tiziana.morosetti@ell.ox.ac.uk
‘Traditional’theatre vs ‘modern’ drama
‘[t]he Yoruba egungun shares some essential features with some European
institutions, masques for example. One assumes that this fact is not new to European
scholars. Yet it is a rare European apologist that would conceive of posing the
question, “Does Egungun exist in Europe?” and spiritedly demonstrate that the
masques of Ben Jonson were indeed egungun; and few Europeans would dismiss with
injured resentment arguments by African scholars that “the egungun, as it is known
in Yorubaland, does not exist in Europe”’
(Owomoyela 1985: 40)
 Clark-Bekederemo (1968): ‘traditional’ (pre-colonial, oral) theatre vs ‘modern’
(colonial, postcolonial, written) drama
 Jeyifo (1981): any distinction between the two makes no sense
 Ogunbiyi (1981): ‘modern traditional’ to distinguish the (Yoruba) popular
travelling theatre from the ‘traditional’ (ritual) theatre and the ‘modern’
(literary) drama
 Etherton (1982): ‘traditional’ (ritual) theatre vs ‘artistic’ (literary) drama
 Oyegoke (2001): ‘indigenous’ theatre vs ‘national’ (Europe-oriented) drama
 Adelugba-Obafemi (2004): ‘traditional’ (ritual) theatre vs ‘modern’ drama
(popular theatre, literary drama, TfD)
 Sheriff (2004): ‘traditional’ theatre vs ‘Western’ drama
Oral literature
(orature)
African languages
‘Ritual’ theatre
Poetry/Songs
Traditional
(Rural)
TRADITIONAL
URBAN
POPULAR
alarinjo/ apidan;
gèlèdé, etc.
Written literature
European languages
‘Literary’, ‘artistic’ theatre
Poetry
Novel/Short story
Modern
(Urban)
MODERN
Itinerant: Yoruba ‘operatic’ theatre (Folk Opera),
Concert Party; guerilla theatre
Festivals
(FESTAC, Panafest, LBHF)
Labs/Fringe theatres (Market Theatre, JoBurg;
Space Theatre, Cape Town)
(Literary theatre)
RURAL
alarinjo/ apidan;
gèlèdé, etc.
Itinerant: Yoruba ‘operatic’ theatre (Folk Opera),
Concert Party; university itinerant companies;TfD
Community theatres (Kamiriithu)
ELITARIAN
URBAN
Literary theatre (including agit-prop theatre, radioplays, university companies, etc.)
Festivals (FESTAC, Panafest, LBHF)
Labs/Fringe theatres
RURAL
Itinerant: guerilla theatre; university itinerant
companies; agit-prop theatre
Total theatre
The definition of ‘total theatre’
‘applies whether the play is performed in English or, say, Yoruba, or in pidgin, or even in a mixture
of languages and language registers. The linguistic dimension is itself a part of total theatre which
also includes significant non-naturalistic idioms: masks, masquerades, music, dance, rhythm and
movement, incantation and word-play’
(Banham et al. 1994: 70)
Total theatre is
‘the multi-media format, in which theatre is presented. While masquerades, dances, songs, music,
role-playing and other aspects of the modern stage appearing alongside a play script seem
inventive, they constitute the very nature of contemporary performances’
(Dugga 2002: 158)
Soyinka: who is he again?
International’, ‘cryptic’, elitist, European-influenced
vs
‘African’, popular, accessible, tradition-based
The Road (1965), Madmen and Specialists (1971), The Bacchae of Euripides (1973),
Death and the King’s Horseman (1975)
Vs
The Trials of Brother Jero (1964),
Before the Blackout (1971),
Jero’s Metamorphosis (1973)
*
A Dance of the Forests (1960), A Play of Giants (1984),
A Scourge of Hyacinths (1991),
The Beatification of Area Boy: A Lagosian Kaleidoscope (1995),
King Baabu (2001)
‘Soyinka is unquestionably Africa’s leading playwright, but the African audiences for his major
philosophical plays are very small indeed. (…) His left-wing African critics accuse him of a
reactionary sensibility and intellect; yet his political activities, for which he has suffered
imprisonment and exile, seem to stem from a deep concern for the common man (…). He has been
consistently and passionately pan-Africanist in his public life; and yet he is often regarded
elsewhere in Africa – and even in Nigeria – as narrowly Yoruba in his intellectual affinities’
(Etherton 1982: 243)
‘While Soyinka is popular outside Nigeria as a dramatist, he is perhaps better known within the
country as a social critic. It is Femi Osofisan who is the popular dramatist with actors, directors
and audiences’
(Dugga 2002: 66)
‘Soyinka is not just a prize, but a man and a citizen. He is not just a citizen, but a writer with an
ardent message for his generation. But how many of us care to know what the message is (...)? (...)
Or what really is the meaning of his work, if we insist on counting among his admirers, the rogues
and predators he ahs so violently denounced, the inept and corrupt politicians, the mimick men in
uniform, the bribe-taking and indolent bureaucrats, the shallow, pretentious professors (...)?’
(Osofisan, ‘Soyinka in the Forest of a Thousand Revellers’, 187)
‘First’ vs ‘second’ generation
Wole Soyinka (b.1934), J.P. Clark-Bekederemo (b.1935)
Ola Rotimi (1938-2000), Zulu Sofola (1935-1995)
*
Femi Osofisan (b. 1946), Kole Omotoso (b. 1943)
Bode Sowande (b. 1948), Tess Onwueme (b.1955)
The ‘second generation’ may refer to
‘those African writers who came into prominence after the Nigerian civil war’ (Ojaide 1997: 441)
‘in their total rejection of the idealist vision based on the animist-metaphysics of their predecessors
and their preference for social change through the collective will of the masses lies their unaminity
[sic]’
(Obafemi 1996: 168)
Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan
University of London:
 Makerere University, Kampala (Uganda), est. 1922, University of East Africa 1963
 University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania),est. 1961, affiliated to the UEA 1970
 University of Ibadan (former University College, Ibadan, Nigeria), est. 1948
 University of Ghana (Legon), est. 1948
Durham University:
 Fourah Bay College (Freetown, Sierra Leone), est. 1827, affiliated 1876
Theatre Arts UI @ 50
The Strong Breed (1963) vs No More the Wasted Breed (1982)
The older generation
‘mystifies history, customs, past heroes and traditions by elevating them to sacred status (…), the
other profanes them by unveiling the embroidered tapestries and encrustations of norms and values
surrounding them in order to empower and revise the present for future progress’
…
A Dance of the Forests is ‘cyclic, tragic and pessimistic’
(Onwueme 1991: 59; 61)
In The Strong Breed, Soyinka
‘could not but read history as a catalogue of human “wastage”, or [...] of “cannibalism.” Africa,
like the Ireland of James Joyce, is the sow that repeatedly devours her own piglets’
(Osofisan 2001: 253)
‘Western’ drama vs ‘African’ theatre
Play within the play, presence of the 4th wall, subdivision into acts/parts,
‘ordinary’ flashbacks, straight dialogue
• Storytelling techniques
• Moral lesson
• Summary of the plot (by an ‘external’ narrator)
• Use of songs and proverbs
• Language: English with use of Yoruba and Pidgin
• Involvement of the audience: no fixed ending
Tradition overlapping with ‘western’ examples: the ancient tragedies, epic drama
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