Femi Osofisan’s Evolving Global Consciousness in Four Adaptations

Abstract

Femi Osofisan is one of contemporary theatre’s greatest adapters. His dramaturgy frequently intertwines European texts with Yoruba songs, dances, rituals, and other cultural elements to break down ostensible cultural barriers. This article interprets Osofisan’s career as a movement from domestic to international concerns, charting the evolution of his dramaturgical approach from his early to later works to demonstrate his expanding cosmopolitan and postcolonial engagements. I argue that four of his adaptations – Who’s Afraid of Solarin? (1978), Tegonni (1994), Wesoo, Hamlet! (2003), and Women of Owu (2004) – serve as an index of Osofisan’s artistic focus as it shifts from a concentration on Nigeria’s domestic problems to expressing a Nigerian perspective on global issues. The latter three plays rely on complex and dynamic intertextuality, reflecting a postmodern self-consciousness as Osofisan metatheatrically explores the processes of performance, theatre, and art through direct interplay between his own characters and those of his Greek or Shakespearean sources. This argument challenges accounts of Osofisan’s career that emphasize an exclusive interest in Nigeria’s domestic politics, arguing instead that his drama is involved in a longstanding project of intercultural adaptation as a means of addressing international political, economic, and security problems.