‘This is actually a good interpretation of modern civilisation’: popular theatre and the social imaginary in Ghana, 1946–66

Abstract

AbstractWest African popular theatre has been the subject of a growing body of scholarship. Yet what has not yet been adquately accounted for in this literature is historical change, both within particular theatre traditions and in their relation to society at large. This article begins to address the gap by focusing on the Ghanaian concert party in the volatile years from the end of World War II through the early years of independence. During this period the Ghanaian concert party underwent profound transformations in form, content, and its modes of production and consumption. Through their geographic mobility and widespread popularity, concert parties participated first-hand in the transformation of public consciousness. Just as the popular press played a central role in the formation of European nationalism, so popular travelling theatre performed a pivotal role among a largely non-literate population during Ghana's transition from colonialism to modern nation state. This article interprets the generic conventions through which the concert party convened and constituted its new public. By deploying an eclectic range of formal techniques to dramatise everyday realities, concert parties became a primary integrative mechanism through which audiences negotiated a tumultuous historical epoch.