African Theatre in a Global Context

Abstract

Could this perhaps be what leaves directors and dramaturges of the temper of Peter Brook so permanently unsatisfied and makes them turn towards Africa (and other places too) for some kind of revelation? Or Richard Schechner? And Eugenio Barba in the direction of the Far East, whose stylistic opulence he proceeds to import into his Theatre Laboratory in the distant setting of Norway? African playwrights are fortunate in this respect, having the tradi­ tion of ‘the unfinished’ within their environ­ ment, but that has not made them any less adventurous. A whole generation of play­ wrights and directors - Sony Labou Tansi (what a tragic loss), Femi Osofisan, the late Dan Kintu and Byron Kawadwa (traumatic losses both), Ben Abdallah, Abdul Anta Ka, Bode Sowande, Ola Rotimi, and so on - appear to be breaking this ancient-new ground, while the West Indian poet and playwright, Derek Walcott and the Brazilian Abdias do Nascimento have equally produced theatre with such resonant affinity to that African source that one would not be too far off to class them as playwrights and experimentalists of a neo-African tradition. However, all that belongs in the contumacious realms of classification, and has nothing to do with the ‘consumer gratification’ which after all, on whatever level that pleasure or stimulation operates, is the primary purpose of preparing a spectacle and inviting an audience to view it.