This work is a study of Nigerian drama from the eve of independence to the 1980s with supportive materials from Nigeria's socio-political history. It examines the appropriateness and usage of the term Nigerian Drama and sets limits on its meaning. It also looks at what influences the Negritude movement and independence had on Nigerian drama, and why it is important to study Nigerian drama of socio-political concern. It examines pre-Colonial Nigeria, the style of politics and electioneering that marked the first Republic, the Marxist phenomenon in drama, the effects of the civil war, and the drama that resulted. It includes play synopses, and biographies of playwrights.
Now available in paperback for the first time this edition of the World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre series examines theatrical developments in Africa since 1945. Entries on thirty-two African countries are featured in this volume, preceded by specialist introductory essays on Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa, History and Culture, Cosmology, Music, Dance, Theatre for Young Audiences and Puppetry. There are also special introductory general essays on African theatre written by Nobel Prize Laureate Wole Soyinka and the outstanding Congolese playwright, Sony Labou Tansi, before his untimely death in 1995. More up-to-date and more wide-ranging than any other publication, this is undoubtedly a major ground-breaking survey of contemporary African theatre.
An annotated world theatre bibliography documenting significant theatre materials published world wide since 1945, plus an index to key names throughout the six volumes of the series.
Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and the world's eighth largest oil producer, but its success has been undermined in recent decades by ethnic and religious conflict, political instability, rampant official corruption and an ailing economy. Toyin Falola, a leading historian intimately acquainted with the region, and Matthew Heaton, who has worked extensively on African science and culture, combine their expertise to explain the context to Nigeria's recent troubles through an exploration of its pre-colonial and colonial past, and its journey from independence to statehood. By examining key themes such as colonialism, religion, slavery, nationalism and the economy, the authors show how Nigeria's history has been swayed by the vicissitudes of the world around it, and how Nigerians have adapted to meet these challenges. This book offers a unique portrayal of a resilient people living in a country with immense, but unrealized, potential.
Nadia Anwar analyzes selected post-independence Nigerian dramas using the conceptual framework of metatheatre, a theatrical strategy that foregrounds the process of play-making by breaking the dramatic illusion. She argues that distancing, as a function of metatheatre, creates a balanced theatrical experience and environment in terms of the emotive and cognitive levels of reception of a particular performance. Anwar's book is the first in-depth study to apply the concept of metatheatre to Nigerian drama. She brings the perspectives of Bertolt Brecht, Thomas J. Scheff, and other theoreticians of dramatic distancing to the analysis of plays by authors such as Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Esiaba Irobi, and Stella ‘Dia Oyedepo.
This book explores the themes of colonial encounters and postcolonial contests over identity, power and culture through the prism of theatre. The struggles it describes unfolded in two cultural settings separated by geography, but bound by history in a common web of colonial relations spun by the imperatives of European modernity. In post-imperial England, as in its former colony Nigeria, the colonial experience not only hybridized the process of national self-definition, but also provided dramatists with the language, imagery and frame of reference to narrate the dynamics of internal wars over culture and national destiny happening within their own societies. The author examines the works of prominent twentieth-century Nigerian and English dramatists such as Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, Davd Edgar and Caryl Churchill to argue that dramaturgies of resistance in the contexts of both Nigerian as well as its imperial inventor England, shared a common allegiance to what he describes as postcolonial desires. That is, the aspiration to overcome the legacies of colonialism by imagining alternative universes anchored in democratic cultural pluralism. The plays and their histories serve as filters through which Ampka illustrates the operation of what he calls 'overlapping modernities' and reconfigures the notions of power and representation, citizenship and subjectivity, colonial and anticolonial nationalisms and postcoloniality. The dramatic works studied in this book embodied a version of postcolonial aspirations that the author conceptualises as transcending temporal locations to encompass varied moments of consciousness for progressive change, whether they happened during the hey day of English imperialism in early twentieth-century Nigeria, or in response to the exclusionary politics of the Conservative Party in Thatcherite England. Theatre and Postcolonial Desires will be essential reading for students and researchers in the areas of drama, postcolonial and cultural studies.
This book is part of a three-volume book-set published under the general title of Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre. Each of the three books in the set has a unique subtitle that works to better focus its content and differentiates it from the other two volumes. The contributors’ backgrounds and global spread adequately reflect the international focus of the three books that make up the collection. The contributions, in their various ways, demonstrate the many advances and ingenious solutions adopted by African theatre practitioners in tackling some of the challenges arising from the adverse colonial experience, as well as the “one-sided” advance of globalisation. The contributions attest to the thriving nature of African theatre and performance, which in the face of these challenges, has managed to retain its distinctiveness, while at the same time acknowledging, contesting, and appropriating influences from elsewhere into an aesthetic that is identifiably African. Consequently, the three books are presented as a comprehensive exploration of the current state of African theatre and performance, both on the continent and diaspora. Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre 2: Innovation, Creativity and Social Change contains essays that address performativity as a process, particularly in the context of theatre’s engagement with contemporary realities with the hope of instigating social change. The innovativeness of the examples explored within the book points to the ingenuity and adaptive capacity of African theatre in ways that engage indigenous forms in the service of contemporary realities. Contributions in Innovation, Creativity and Social Change explore forms such as Theatre for Development, community and applied theatre, and indigenous juridical performances, as well as the work of contemporary dramatists and performers who set out to instigate change in society.
