Stage interpretation of Spencer Okoroafor’s “Battle of Wit and Will”: An Adaptation of Achebe’s <i>Arrow of God</i>

Abstract

This paper is an appraisal of the power of adaptation in literary text. It is motivated by the need to critically assess the impact of the act of adaptation in play productions. The study used the historical method to reveal the power of drama in vividly exposing themes originally in the work of the first writer. The researchers discovered that the act of adaptation consistently helps to promote and popularize the work, the author, and ultimately the culture in focus as in the prose being studied. The paper recommended that more attention should be given to the act of adaptation of literary works from poetry and prose to drama. The excise helped to foreground the thematic thrust of the original text, while expanding the target audience. This particular adaptation further projected the Igbo culture depicted in the prose which forms the corpus of this research.Key Words: Adaptation, playwriting, production elements, betrayal, performance