Nigerian Playwright Research Articles

Cultural Interpretation and Traditional Perspectives in Ahmed Yerima’s Akudaaya

Culture remains a clear indicator of the organic identity of mankind. Cultural materials are therefore one of the dominant sources from which playwrights have continued to draw. However, an attempt to dramatise certain inherent cultural practices of a people often comes with challenges especially for a playwright who does not belong to such culture. Hence, this study examines Ahmed Yerima’s Akudaaya with the view to define the cultural trajectories and traditional dispositions reflected in the play. Through textual analysis, the study analyses the selected play-text. It is revealed that Ahmed Yerima’s attempt to reflect the cultural identity and traditional perspectives of the Yoruba people is manifested in his dramatisation of the symbolic representation of the king’s crown; the cultural interpretation of akudaaya and the dichotomy of language; cultural norms and the significant position of Iyalode; ritual aesthetics and the spirito-cosmic identity of the Yoruba people. The study concludes that Ahmed Yerima’s Akudaaya remains one of the notable plays written by a Nigerian playwright which reflects the cultural identity of the akudaaya view among the Yoruba people. However, Yerima is able to achieve cultural reconstruction and initiate a challenge to create cultural consciousness through his play-text.

Nigerian Dramatists and the Postcolonial Dreams: Poetics of Ethnic Unity in Diversity

This study examines the ideological persuasions of the pioneer Nigerian dramatists given their penchant to edifying the former British colony. Drawing on primary and secondary data, the study contends that contemporary Nigerian playwrights are steep in their ‘social commitments’ to aspire for a better and unified nation, in the face of ethnic diversities. It critically analyses, John Iwuh’s Birthright and Barclays Ayakoroma’s Castle in the Air, using Ngugi wa Thiong’O’s conceptualization of Liberation and Abiola Irele’s Alienation as a conceptual footing to demonstrate the exceptional social visions in the selected plays. In doing this, the study unpacks the boundary crossing between aesthetic, social-political and cultural realities to reconfigure the fractious environment for the holistic integrated and a better postcolonial Nigeria.

Dramatic Dissent in Wole Soyinka’s Metaphysical Play Death and the King’s Horseman (1975) and Biyi Bandele’s Netflix Adaptation Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman (2022)

Abstract Approaching the theme of this special issue as a dramatic structure, the contribution investigates the representation of dissenting practices in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Biyi Bandele’s Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman. First published in 1975, Soyinka’s metaphysical play dramatises the events surrounding the eponymous protagonist Elesin Oba who, according to Yoruba cosmology, must follow the king in death to ensure harmony between this world and the next. Questioning both metaphysical and Marxist readings of the play, I argue that its employment of ritual as a dramaturgical device functions to explore the intricate reasons for failed leadership in post-independence Nigeria. This re-reading of Soyinka’s classic is informed by its recent screen adaptation, Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman, which was co-produced by Ebonylife Films and Netflix and directed by the late Nigerian playwright and filmmaker Biyi Bandele. Reinforcing new Nollywood’s budding relationship with Netflix and its accompanying globalisation, Bandele’s movie appropriates the play’s dramatic structure of dissent on the levels of cinematography and editing, mise-en-scène and sound, inviting its transnational viewers to consider past and present manifestations of dissent as a means of managing and envisioning possible solutions to contemporary conflicts. The conclusion stresses that the ritual form presents a flexible device to interrogate historically specific power relations and encourage distinct generations of audiences to imagine their forms, causes, and alternatives; whereas Soyinka’s play suggests that these alternatives rest on the capabilities of the educated middle classes, Bandele’s movie constructs more diversified audiences which may settle for its consoling or dissenting aesthetics, respectively.

“I Am Trying to Redefine the Place of the Playwright”: An Interview with the Nigerian Playwright Ahmed Yerima

“I Am Trying to Redefine the Place of the Playwright”: An Interview with the Nigerian Playwright Ahmed Yerima.

A Mythic Reading of the Materialist Epiphany in Femi Osofisan’s Another Raft

This paper is a mythic reading of Another Raft written and published in 1988 by the Nigerian playwright, Femi Osofisan. The paper gives a materialist interpretation of the play and its mythic resources to illustrate Osofisan’s drama as a dispassionate critique of society. It observes that the playwright’s deployment of mythology in the play, and the play’s intertextual connection to an earlier one, The Raft (published 1964), by J. P. Clark, is revelatory. One problem any reader familiar with the two plays may find with understanding Osofisan’s version is the prominent use of supernatural beings as characters mingling with humans, which is nonexistent in the older play. This paper’s interpretation, therefore, reveals and affirms that the supernatural figures in the play are only creative metaphors deployed by the playwright to comment on the mundane social reality of the world outside the text. It also reveals that Osofisan’s response in Another Raft to Clark’s The Raft is to differ ideologically from the older play on the root causes of the decadence and sterility in Nigeria’s social and political space. Osofisan’s response demystifies the seemingly elusive solution to the cankerworms destroying the fabric of the nation. The paper concludes that Osofisan’s recourse to mythic and traditional elements is very helpful to his creative imagination and his effort to provide a panacea, through the theatre, to the obstacles impeding economic and political progress in postcolonial Nigerian society.

A Symphony of Voices: Wole Soyinka's Narrative on Pluralism and Radical Humanism

This abstract delves into the discourse of radical humanism and pluralistic perspectives as manifested in four significant plays by Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate. The selected plays for examination are "The Swamp Dwellers," "The Strong Breed," "Madmen and Specialists," and "A Dance of the Forests." Wole Soyinka's theatrical repertoire is characterized by its profound exploration of human agency, societal dynamics, and the clash of tradition and modernity. Through intricate plots, vibrant characters, and symbolic imagery, Soyinka navigates themes of power, oppression, spirituality, and the resilience of the human spirit. At the heart of his works lies a fervent commitment to radical humanism, advocating for individual autonomy, dignity, and social justice in the face of tyranny and societal decay. Furthermore, Soyinka's plays reflect a pluralistic worldview that celebrates the multiplicity of cultures, beliefs, and worldviews across Africa and beyond. He intricately weaves indigenous traditions, colonial legacies, and global influences into the fabric of his narratives, challenging monolithic narratives and embracing the complexities of cultural hybridity and interconnectivity. By closely examining the selected plays, this study aims to unravel how Soyinka employs dramatic techniques, linguistic innovation, and cultural symbolism to critique entrenched power structures, challenge hegemonic narratives, and amplify marginalized voices. Through the lens of radical humanism and pluralistic perspectives, Soyinka's plays offer profound insights into the human condition and the quest for meaning, freedom, and belonging in a rapidly changing world. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of Soyinka's literary legacy and its enduring relevance to contemporary discussions on identity, politics, and social transformation. By shedding light on the interplay of radical humanism and pluralistic perspectives in Soyinka's dramatic oeuvre, this study invites readers to engage critically with the complexities of human experience and the ongoing struggle for justice and equality.

The Man Died: Wole Soyinka’s imprisonment and the Yoruba trickster tale in Femi Euba’s Tortoise!

ABSTRACT Nigerian playwright Femi Euba utilizes the Yoruba trickster tale in his one-act play Tortoise! to satirize the imprisonment of Wole Soyinka during the Nigerian civil war of the 1960s. This essay draws parallels between Euba’s play and Soyinka’s play, The Detainee, which critiques the imprisonment of Chief Obafemi Awolowo by the Nigerian federal government a few years before Soyinka himself fell victim to the same alleged crime of treason. This essay argues that Euba’s use of the trickster tale as a logical genre in theater is grounded in the communal space of Yoruba belief systems that encourage a collective response to social and political crises. The essay also traces modernity’s fraught challenges in the guise of neo-colonial structures, such as the prison system, and the ways in which traditional modes of story-telling become avenues for apprehending, addressing, and contesting global forces at work through the legacies of colonialism.

Ritual and theatre at the crossroads of poetics, politics and epistemology: Femi Euba (and WS)

ABSTRACT This study returns to the issue in world theatre scholarship of the boundary between theatre and ritual as forms or modes of performance, with reference to modern African drama in general and the dramaturgy of the Nigerian playwright Femi Euba in particular. The central argument hinges on the crossroads at which, for the successful integration of drama and ritual, aesthetic boldness, radical politics, and epistemological daring meet and clash. Deploying the notion of suspension of ritual disbelief as its central heuristic, the study explores the question of whether or not it is necessary for a playwright and her audience to believe in the gods and their rituals for ritual motifs and idioms to be successfully or productively integrated with dialogue drama. The author examines formal technique, thematic concerns, and cultural location – Africa/Diaspora – in three plays by Euba: The Devil, The Gulf, and The Eye of Gabriel.

A Conversation with Nigerian Playwright and Public Intellectual Ahmed Yerima

The concept of the public intellectual is yet to be well engaged in Nigerian scholarship. While it has been implied in many critical works on writers, activists, journalists, lawyers, and others, the concept of the public intellectual has not been exclusively engaged to study historic and current Nigerian public figures. In this article, although much of it is an interview with the award-winning and prolific Nigerian playwright, academic, former Artistic Director of the National Troupe, and Director General of the Nigerian National Theatre, Ahmed Yerima, I briefly establish the public intellectual history in Nigeria before engaging the playwright on this subject and interrogating his status as a public intellectual or cultural critic. During the course of the interview, Yerima also touches on other subjects facing Nigeria and the intersection between one of his plays, Abobaku (2015), and Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (1975).

“END-SARS”AGITATION IN NIGERIA: A CORRELATIVE DISCOURSE OF UZO NWAMARA’S DANCE OF THE DELTA

Until recent time, the Nigerian space is besieged with issues emanating from “End-SARS” agitation, masterminded by some aggrieved youths who publicly protest to seek redress in fundamental issues that are affecting the Nigerian front in the 21st century. These issues include police brutalities, corrupt governance, hardship, weak political system, incessant killings, poverty, tribalism, divide, and rule system, and suffering. Their means of agitation include public demonstrations, blockade of governmental establishments, and disruption of governmental and non-governmental economic and social activities. This further paves room for hoodlums to acerbate their heinous and malicious acts, which includes likes of youth restiveness, shop breaking, theft, looting, and destruction of properties. These malicious dichotomies unequivocally increase the pain, suffering, hunger, and death of the people and threaten the existence of the Nigerian state. The study, therefore, aims at identifying the cause and effect of “End-SARS” agitation in the Nigerian space, drawing reference from Uzo Nwamara’s Dance of the Delta. To achieve this, Textual Analytical Approach and Social and Behavioural Change Communication Theory are employed as guides. Uzo Nwamara as a new generational Nigerian playwright strives in his plays to address issues of terrorism, youth restiveness, political bigotry, and tribal sentiments. Amongst the major suggestions, the study insists that job opportunities should be made available to the Nigerian youths as that would help decrease the rate of crime which paves room for the establishment of SARS and other crime-related agencies that are positioned to tackle crimes in the Nigerian state.

The Lone Hut: Migration, Identity, and Twinship in Wole Soyinka's The Swamp Dwellers

Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka once described The Swamp Dwellers as an exploration of economic displacement and cultural disruption resulting from the pillage of natural resources by colonial governments and international corporations. Soyinka set his play deep in the Niger Delta, a place of dense mangrove swamps and the folkloric Mami Wata—a half-human, half-fish seductress, to highlight the environmental degradation and lost livelihoods of the Yoruba, Ogoni, and other indigenous peoples. By focusing on a handful of characters who inhabit or pass through a small hut built by Makuri and Alu, an impoverished elderly couple eking out an existence in the heart of the swamp, Soyinka reveals how migration and acculturation erode traditional values and reshape identity in ways that encourage avarice and self-interest over family and community, promote political and economic corruption, and accelerate the replacement of indigenous belief systems with the depersonalized transactional values of commerce and trade.

Didactic Nuances in Emeka Nwabueze’s Presentation of Characters’ Social Worldviews on Concealment/Deception in Spokesman for the Oracle and Rainstorm in the Desert

This study examines the application language and speech for the purpose of deception as a means of achieving concealment of information as portrayed in two plays of a Nigerian playwright Emeka Nwabueze. Thus, this study attempts to discuss some typologies of deception and concealment of information as a means of understanding better, the reasons and circumstances that inform the description of concealment of information as good, bad, devious, ugly, legal or illegal. This attempt will help us to interpret why and when concealment of information as well as deception are essential in achieving survival, progress, redress, defence, discovery, illumination, satisfaction or vendetta directly or indirectly. Though concealment of information can occur through inaction and nonverbal mediums, we are focusing on deception through language and speech, and how worldview aids in locale specific definition and perception of forms of deception and concealment of information. The discussion in this study revolves around interpretive analysis approaches as means of accessing applicability of some theories of concealment and deception in describing behaviours in these categories as universal common with shades of interpretive community perspectives. Lastly, the didactic relevance of Nwabueze’s projection of presumed propelling forces and the consequences of concealment of information in the plays understudy, subsumes the understanding of deception as a universal common with trajectories of interpretive community suppositions.

Trickster in Nigerian Postcolonial Drama

Trickster in black culture, as illustrated by Femi Euba, the Nigerian playwright, “whether represented in animal form (as tortoise, spider, or monkey), or as a divinity such as Esu-Elegbara or Legba in West Africa, has often been used to convey an important moral or cultural message, implied in the action the trickster describes” (167). This significant role of the trickster is embodied in the two Nigerian plays under study, Esu and The Vagabond Minstrels by Femi Osofison (1988) and Dionysus of the Holocaust by Femi Euba (2002). Given the fact that Nigeria is characterized by the largest population in Africa, over three hundred spoken languages, and a wide variety of ethnic nationalities with different cultures and religions which is clearly reflected in Nigerian drama. The bricoleur technique is adopted in the paper as a methodology as it is best defined by Denzin and Lincoln as one in which the inherent evaluations of a research project are made clear and persistently returned to throughout the period of a study. The paper concludes that all black people need to have Esu-related qualities such as escaping, creating secret codes, encouraging insurrections, deception, and dissembling to keep balance in a world full of fateful/fatal conflicts which is the hardest challenge that Esu, the God of fate introduces. The moral of the two plays is that good and bad coexist and complement each other. People learn to distinguish between them through experience and they overcome evil situations by the amount of trickery they master.

HISTORICITY AND GENDER HEROISM IN OLA ROTIMI’S HOPES OF THE LIVING DEAD

The intercourse of history and Drama is an age long phenomenon. On one hand, the evolution and the various developmental stages of drama find expression in history. On the other hand, historical occurrences provided and still provide raw materials for drama. Historically, women have been represented in drama since the beginning of literary tradition. Aristophanes (410 BC) represented Greek women, reflecting the strength and weakness of women and more importantly the role of women in nation building. Shakespeare and Webster portray women substantially in their plays. Nigerian playwrights are not left out in the scheme, as they employ the instrumentality of history to dramatise traits of legendry Nigeria women and thus preserve their heroic deeds for the prosperity of posterity. This paper interrogates the interplay of history and gender heroism in Ola Rotimi’s play, Hopes of the Living Dead. The framework for this discourse is “Stiwanism”, the African expression of feminism. The paper argues that Ola Rotimi, in a bid to celebrate African women does not create a fictitious personality with fabricated legendary deeds, but falls back on history to showcase the legendary and heroic nature of African women. History, therefore, enhances the tangibility of gender heroism as dramatised by Ola Rotimi in the play. We conclude that, in Hopes of the Living Dead, Ola Rotimi employs history to unearth the past, thereby reconstructing the present and taking a peep into the future about what is expected of the African women as leaders and co-workers in social and political re-engineering.

THE ABSURDITY OF NIGERIAN POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE: A CRITICAL READING OF THE DRAMA OF OLA ROTIMI

The writers commitment to the socio-political issues is highly commendable enough as different Nigerian playwrights such as Soyinka, Sowande, Osofisan, Hagher, yerima and many others who have painstakingly reflected the dismal performances of Nigerian politicians, or call them, the neo-imperialists who took over power from the colonial masters. This article, as a critical discourse unveiled the iconoclastic purview of Ola Rotimi’s dramatic culture. To this end, an interrogation of his dramaturge within the praxis of the absurdity and futility in Nigerian socio-political icons is done. The work therefore does a close reading of two of his plays; Holding Talks and Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again as paradigms with features, imageries and images that depict the absurdity and futility of Nigerian politics.

Leave the Dead Some Room to Dance: Postcolonial Founding and the Problem of Inheritance in Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests

In this essay, I examine Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests in order to think through political founding. Viewing founding from the postcolonial context, I explore how members of a political community negotiate among the multiple pasts that continue to affect them, and what kind of institutions and actors are best equipped to pursue this critical part of the founding project. Situating Soyinka’s account against competing narratives of the postcolonial condition, I demonstrate how he uses Yoruba philosophy and cosmology to reframe the challenges and potentials of founding, and I illustrate how political actors should respond to these by adopting the role of “citizen-artists” who can learn from past struggles and overcome their overwhelming legacies. Read as a dramatic intervention into Nigerian democratic politics and as a work of political theory, A Dance offers a lens through which to interrogate founding within and beyond the postcolony.

Complexity and Politics of Naming in Yoruba Tradition: A Dramatic Exploration of Once Upon an Elephant

This paper examines the connection between naming and oral tradition, specifically àló and ìtàn, by discussing Bosede Ademilua-Afolayan’s Once Upon an Elephant (2015), and demonstrates the ways in which contemporary Nigerian playwrights appropriate the same to engage their political realities. The Yoruba are aware that names are not mere signs but the material nodes of the social network, hence the rites associated with naming underscore the people’s belief in birth, life, and living, as well as the totality of existence. The paper is in three parts: a background to the analysis, a discussion of Yoruba belief about naming that is linked with a discussion of oral tradition, and an analysis of the play with materials that are drawn from the previous discussion in order to show how the playwright has used the strategy of naming to engage a broader socio-political reality of her society.

Satire as a Parable of an Ailing Nation: Lessons from Niyi Osundare’s <i>The State Visit</i>

The paper examines the satirical treatment of dictatorial and authoritarian leadership in Nigeria as portrayed in Niyi Osundare’s The State Visit. It documents Osundare’s protest towards the high spate of political chicanery amongst Nigerian leaders and its attendant effect of squalor and poverty amongst the citizens. The research adopts the content analysis methodology as well as the qualitative approach as it uses Osundare’s The State Visit as paradigm for the handful of political satires within the Nigerian dramatic landscape. Amongst others, the paper observes that tyrannical leadership constitutes a huge factor that militates against the growth and development of most African countries especially Nigeria. The study also brandishes satire as a unique art form that sets out to occasion positive change through the mechanism of corrective laughter and ridicule. It is for the foregoing that the paper advocates the dire need for the enthronement of purposeful and effective democratic leadership in Nigeria. Ideological commitment amongst Nigerian playwrights is strongly canvassed also in the study-a commitment towards crafting plays that harp on national bonding, solidarity, security and development.

The “Chauvinistic” Men of Julie Okoh: Victims of Feminist Bias

The paper interrogates Julie Okoh’s sense of commitment to the feminist struggle. Using her plays as case studies, the paper presents Okoh as one of the most passionate, emotional and bias feminist playwrights in Nigeria. The argument canvassed in this paper includes that in Okoh’s dramaturgy, women are portrayed far better than their men counterpart. The research is fundamentally literary in methodology and qualitative in approach with some of Okoh’s selected plays as primary source materials. The major finding in the study is that Okoh is one of the few Nigerian playwrights that have demonstrated ideological commitments in their dramaturgies. The study also observed that the feminist project, especially as portrayed in Nigerian drama, is unremorsefully hostile to patriarchy. It is in the light of the above that the paper advocates the need for Nigerian playwrights to show ideological commitment in their plays. Nigerian feminist playwrights are also encouraged to always strike a gender balance in the delineation of characters in their plays. It is hoped that such gender balancing would facilitate gender equality which the feminist project sets out to achieve.

Gender and Time in Ahmed Yerima’s Aetu

SummaryThis article explores the effects of time and historical change on Nigerian feminist literature by focusing on the work of a prolific contemporary Nigerian playwright, Ahmed Yerima. The history of Yerima’s writing reveals a shift from plays with historical themes to plays which engage explicitly with questions of gender and gender-related oppression. In this way, his writing trajectory provides one example of the growing importance of gender concerns in Nigerian literature. The article goes further to present an exegesis of one of Yerima’s gender-focused plays, namely Aetu, published in 2007. It looks at the play’s engagement with the way in which traditional Yoruba practices fix women in socially subordinate positions. It also considers the play’s handling of time in relation to feminist concerns with time and non-linearity.