The Theatre of the Indigenous Tradition in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Abstract

There are basically three theories that explain the origin of the Nigerian theatre. Each of these theories represents a theatre tradition, and all these three theatre traditions exist side by side in Contemporary Nigerian society. One of these theories is the ritual and festival origin theory which states that Nigerian theatre developed from the rituals and festivals of the people. This theory stands for the ritual traditional theatre tradition. This is what is referred to as theatre of the indigenous tradition in this study. This paper examines the theatre of the indigenous tradition in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. It focuses on the peculiarities of this theatre which characterize the work of art under study. It identifies and analyses the three different categories in which this indigenous theatre is found within the context of this work of art. It, then, concludes that there are certain activities in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart that are either purely theatrical or have elements of theatre.