Bin Kadi-So and Dramatic Innovation

Abstract

around 1938 within the framework of the Ecole William Ponty the? ater, a legacy of French colonization. Numerous talents, including Bernard B. Dadie, achieved fame on the theater stage with such plays as Assemien Dehyle roi du Sanwi and Kouao Adjoba. Designed essentially as enter? tainment, Ponty plays served as fertile soil for the cultural creations that were to be born in the 1960s. Sociopolitical conditions imposed a new orientation, both thematically and esthetically, upon various indigenous and expatriate playwrights. The theatrical season of the years 1966-70 witnessed the predominance of a sociopolitical theater whose esthetic was in general based upon the norms of classical French dramaturgy. But beginning in 1972, artists made a con? scious resolution to create a new dramatic language for the stage. In that light, a complete rupture occurred between the experimental theater of academics such as Bernard Zadi Zaourou, Marie-Jose Hourantier, Were Were Liking, Niangoran Porquet, and Toure Aboubacar, and the stage expression that had been inherited from the West. The new focus aimed at rehabilitating Africa's dramatic genius that remained active in the collective consciousness.