Fathers and Sons: Politics and Myth in Recent Zambian Drama

Abstract

The conflict of generations is a theme familiar enough in western drama – but less expected in an African context, with its strong traditions of ‘respectful, submissive behaviour towards the old in general, and towards one's parents in particular’. Yet a theme of aggression between fathers and sons has, argues Stewart Crehan, been discernible in a significant proportion of the plays staged in the last three festivals of the Zambian National Theatre Arts Association. He analyzes some of these plays, and examines the implications of the theme in the various social circumstances of contemporary Zambian society, besides discussing the ‘mythical dimension’ which is also involved. Stewart Crehan is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature and Languages at the University of Zambia, and has been active in Zambian theatre as a playwright, actor, director, and adjudicator. He is author of a critical study and selected edition of the work of William Blake, and has published various articles on literature from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, and on African drama and literature.