African Theater I INTRODUCTION African Theater, traditional, historical, and contemporary dramatic forms in Africa south of the Sahara.

African Theater I INTRODUCTION African Theater, traditional, historical, and contemporary dramatic forms in Africa south of the Sahara. Contemporary African theater ranges from sacred or ritual performances to dramatized storytelling, literary drama, or modern fusions of scripted theater with traditional performance techniques. II TRADITIONAL DRAMA The diversity of performance traditions in Africa is a result of the huge spread of peoples and cultural traditions that form the cultural makeup of each country. National boundaries do not usually reflect traditional territories--in any one nation state there may be hundreds of different ethnic groupings and tribal languages. Many of these cultures have rich oral and ritual traditions, aspects of which have survived into contemporary society. In the city of Oshogbo in Nigeria, the myth of the imprisonment of Obatala (the creator god) is performed annually. The Kalabari (Nigeria) perform the ikaki (tortoise) masquerade in which an entire village participates---the European aesthetic divisions between dance, music, visual arts (in masks and costume), and dialogue, as well as the division between stage and auditorium, are not applicable in these performances. Traditional epics such as the Sunjatu of modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) were performed by griots (bards), and praise singers dramatized the exploits of the Ancoli (Uganda) and Tswana (southern Africa) chiefs. The Alarinjo players are the first documented professional African theater troupe; they developed from the Egungun (ancestral spirit) masquerades and were performed from the 16th and 17th centuries in the Yoruba city-state of Oyo (Nigeria). In recent decades, traditional performances have been used as a means of self-expression and empowerment by peoples facing hostile political or social circumstances. The Tiv (Nigeria) used traditional Kwang Hir puppetry to voice opposition to political victimization during the 1960s. III THEATER OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD The period of colonial domination in Africa was consolidated at the Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884 and 1885 when the European powers mapped out the division of Africa. Colonization led to the suppression and outlawing of many indigenous art forms, such as drumming and dancing. The colonial attempt to stifle indigenous African belief systems has been best dramatized by Nigeria's foremost playwright and Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, in his play Death and the King's Horseman (1975). While Western missionaries sought to instill Christian values through biblical dramas and pageants (for instance the Roman Catholic Church's vast medieval passion plays in Rwanda and Zaïre), Africans often adapted European dramatic forms to their own satirical or political purposes. In 1915 the Ghanaian playwright Kobina Sekyi wrote The Blinkards, a full-length play that satirizes the Fante nouveaux riches of Cape Coast who "abjured the magic of being themselves" in favor of uncritical acceptance of European norms and values. Another Ghanaian, "Bob" Johnson, developed the concert-party performance tradition with the establishment of his troupe The Versatile Eight in 1922. Concert parties were characterized by long musical openings, stock domestic situations, and audience intervention. The form remains popular in French-speaking West Africa. Known as the father of Nigerian theater, Hubert Ogunde founded the first Yoruba Opera traveling theater troupe in the 1930s. It performed biblical and later political dramas in urban areas; plays such as Strike and Hunger (1945) and Bread and Bullets (1951) took issue with colonial exploitation. This form became immensely popular and was employed by dramatists Kola Ogunmola and Duro Lapido in the 1950s. It was eventually incorporated into television drama. African plays were produced in indigenous and European languages from the 1880s onward. The early years of British colonial education in South Africa involved the encouragement of European-style literary and theatrical activities by educated black men. Playwrights such as Esau Mthethwa wrote social satires about local life in the Zulu and Xhosa languages. In the 1920s teachers and pupils collaborated in devised theatrical productions at Marionhill School in South Africa while the William Ponty School (founded 1933) in Dakar, Senegal, encouraged the research and production of plays based on traditions of the pupils' own communities. IV THEATER OF THE INDEPENDENCE PERIOD Wole Soyinka Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka combines themes from Yoruba religion and folklore with traditional Western literary forms, such as the novel, play, and poem. In 1986 he became the first African to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Colin McPherson/Sygma/Corbis The period after World War II ended in 1945 led to the struggle for and achievement of independence in many African countries. The new nation-states were often established along colonial boundaries and power was handed over to a bourgeois class who had been educated in Europe. The epoch-making era of nationalism produced a number of African playwrights who merged African theatrical traditions with European forms. These plays are still widely performed and read in many parts of the continent. Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka wrote his first plays in the late 1950s. Soyinka's versatility can be seen in his prodigious output of plays from 1957 on. A Dance of the Forests was written for the Independence Day celebrations in Africa in 1960. It was officially banned for its veiled prophecy of internecine conflict. The Lion and the Jewel (1959) is a witty comedy set in rural Nigeria, while The Road (1965) explores the mystical connections between Yoruba and Christian religions. The Universities of Ibadan and Ife fostered a generation of playwrights, including John Pepper Clark, who was the first to make explicit connections between Greek tragedy and African ritual in Song of a Goat (1963), and Ola Rotimi, who dramatized a Yoruba version of the Oedipus myth called The Gods Are Not to Blame (1968). In some countries independence spawned efforts towards radical social reform into which playwrights were (and still are) sometimes co-opted. In others, the new regimes soon inspired playwrights to use theater as a vehicle for political opposition and in some cases mobilization. Ghanaian playwright Efua Sutherland was associated with the socially reformist government of Kwame Nkrumah. She founded the Ghana Drama Studio and modernized the traditional form of Anansesem (spider stories) as a form of Everyman in Foriwa (1962) and the Marriage of Anansewa (1975). Her political leanings were followed by two other important Ghanaian playwrights, Joe de Graaft and Ama Ata Aidoo. Raymond Sarif Easmon of Sierra Leone scathingly attacks ethnic prejudice and power mongering in his play The New Patriots (1966). Ugandan playwrights Robert Serumaga (A Play, 1967) and Byron Kawadwa sought symbolic, mythical, and abstract forms in which to express their opposition to the regimes of Milton Obote and Idi Amin. Serumaga founded the first professional theater group in Uganda and achieved international success with his play Renga Moi (1972). Contemporary Ugandan dramatists such as Alex Mukulu continue in this political "art theater" tradition. The 1950s was a period of relative cultural freedom in South Africa and a number of successful collaborations between black and white artists and producers took place. White South African playwright Athol Fugard founded The Rehearsal Room, where he worked with a number of black intellectuals--including Bloke Modisane, Lewis Nkosi, and Nat Nakasa--on No Good Friday (1958) and King Kong (1961). The Union of South African Artists founded by Es' kia Mphahlele produced both these plays. V FRANCOPHONE AFRICAN THEATER Francophone Africa consists of the French-speaking former colonies, of which there are 16 in Africa. The common colonial experience of these countries has led to some parallel cultural developments as well as the use of French as opposed to indigenous languages in literature. The French colonial policy of assimilation has had repercussions in contemporary theater; performers and playwrights are frequently Paris-based, while the Festival Internationale des Francophonies in Limoges provides a regular platform for world theater in French. The most prevalent topics in French-speaking African plays are historical. The reasons for this are as much due to traditional aesthetics of griot (professional bard) performance as they are to the need to reassert cultural identity in the years leading up to and following independence. Shaka, by Senegalese president Léopold Sédar Senghor, is an epic poem based on the life of Shaka, the Zulu chief; Seydou Badian Koyate from Mali wrote La Mort de Chaka (1962) and Cheik N'Dao wrote L'Exil d'Albouri ( 1967). Ivory Coast playwright Bernard Dadie satirizes the social anomalies of post-colonial society in Monsieur Thogô-Gnini. The Cameroon writer Guillaume Oyôno Mbia diligently examines the conflict of traditional and modern values in Trois Pretendeurs, un Mari (1964). In recent decades a more radical approach has emerged through the incorporation of pidgin languages and slang as well as traditional forms of theater. Sony Labou Tansi, from the Republic of the Congo, produced grotesque satires of dictators in Qui a Mangé Madame D'Avoie Bergota? (1988), while Werewere Liking deploys traditional ritual forms in her new plays. Senouvo Agbota Zinsou uses the concert-party style, complex narrative technique, and mythical plots in La Tortue qui Chante (1987). VI POPULAR, POLITICAL, AND DEVELOPMENT THEATER Athol Fugard Many of South African playwright Athol Fugard's plays focus on apartheid, the system of racial separation that existed in his country until 1994. His works have been produced in the United Kingdom and the United States. The Everett Collection, Inc. During the 1970s a number of military and discriminatory regimes held power, among them the dictatorship of Idi Amin in Uganda and the apartheid government in South Africa. In opposition to these regimes, playwrights turned to radical and propagandist forms of theater. Tanzanian playwright Ebrahim Hussein produced plays in Swahili, such as Kinjeketile (1970), which focused on the ideological struggle for a just society. Simultaneously there was a reaction against bourgeois literary drama; theater companies increasingly sought to speak to the urban and rural poor and to include them in their activities by moving out of national theater buildings and into the local areas. The techniques of "Forum Theatre" of Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire in Brazil have inspired international aid agencies and theater practitioners to help the understanding of issues such as AIDS, gender, and development. One of the most powerful and effective pieces of political theater to be produced during this period was I Will Marry When I Want (1977), a play commissioned by the villagers of Kamiriithu in Kenya from two playwrights, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Ngugi wa Miri. The play focuses on indigenous exploitation and was performed in Kikuyu by and for the villagers in a theater they built. In defiance of apartheid, black theater artists collaborated with the white intellectuals in South Africa to develop new forms of protest drama. Town Theater and Black Consciousness Movement groups, such as the Phoenix Players, Fugard's Serpent Players, and Workshop 71, developed a kind of tabloid-style drama using shifting timescales and documentary techniques as well as song, dance, and dialogue. Hungry Earth (1979) by Maishe Maponye portrays a utopian vision of the precolonial past in an attempt to construct an alternative vision of the future. The Market Theater (established in 1976) fostered a number of internationally successful productions, among them Woza Albert! (1986), a collaboration by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema, and Barney Simon. Fugard's innovative workshop style of production (seen best in his production of Sizwe Bansi is Dead, 1972) has had an effect on younger repertory companies such as Footspaul and the Handspring Puppet Company. Nigerian playwrights of the 1970s produced plays that were more specifically concerned with the social and moral effects of dictatorship than those by their predecessors. Bode Sowande explores the themes of corruption and exploitation in Afamako--The Workhorse (1978) and Flamingoes (1982). Babafemi Osofisan deploys Brechtian alienation effects as well as storytelling and role-playing to introduce revolutionary potential into plots based on traditions or legends: The Chattering and the Song (1977) and Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels (1991). Development theater was very successful in the 1980s and 1990s. In Kampala there are hundreds of small-scale theater groups, such as Bakayimbara Dramactors, that give extempore performances on a range of contemporary local issues in Lugandan. Theater-for-development projects have taken place in Tanzania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and many other countries. The Laedza Batanani Popular Theater project in Botswana (started 1974) was an annual project that examined problems ranging from cattle theft, inflation, and unemployment to education and health. The Maratholi traveling players in Lesotho covered themes such as reforestation, cooperatives, and the rehabilitation of prisoners. Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has in some ways been the testing ground for pan-African theatrical exchange and collaboration. The government's progressive policies and promotion of indigenization (the exploration of cultural heritage in the quest for positive self identity) has led to a number of initiatives to start community theater projects in Zimbabwe. In 1982 Ngugi wa Miri and Ngugi wa Thiongo were commissioned to take The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (a play about the Mau Mau leader) on tour among rural communities. Other successful community theater projects include Morewa, where young unemployed youths were encouraged to use local dances to perform a dance-drama about gang formation. The Zimbabwean Association of Community Theatres formed links with other southern African theaters such as Zambia's Chikwakwa Theatre; however, divisions between white repertory theaters and community theater remain strong. In the early 1990s African theater continued to thrive despite (or perhaps because of) the often extremely hostile political and economic circumstances. Many of the best playwrights went into exile (including Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiongo, and Senouvo Agbota Zinsou). However, in some countries a more tolerant political climate enabled some freedom of expression: In 1987 Amakhosi in Zimbabwe produced a controversial play on political corruption, Workshop Negative, which was initially banned but later tolerated. The end of apartheid in South Africa has signaled the regeneration of theatrical activity in and around the townships, for example the Civic Theatre, Johannesburg. While the universities still provide a haven for cultural activity in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Nigeria, the struggle for funding often impedes the establishment of professional theater companies. Theater projects or companies may depend on foreign cultural aid. However, in the absence of film and television in many communities, theater remains a vital and popular form of communication and cultural expression. 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