The Dramaturgy of Femi Osofisan Adesola Olusiji ADEYEMI Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of English May 2009 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgment. Acknowledgment This thesis would not have been written without the support and encouragement of … actually, it would have been written, eventually; this work is part of a research of more than twenty years into the work of playwright Femi Osofisan. There have been many encounters along the way – some delightfully pleasant, many enriching and a few downright diversionary; but all provided a worthwhile experience. To Professor Femi Osofisan for allowing me unfettered access into his personal as well as working life; and for trusting my judgement even when I had no idea what I was doing. For all the support over the years, I express my profound gratitude. I thank my supervisor and friend, Professor Jane Plastow, whose patience, support, resources, gentle nudging and affable reprimands helped this thesis immensely. Emeritus Professor Martin Banham, Professors Chris Dunton and Kathryn Kendall, all great teachers, all great mentors; I am indeed a fortunate man to have drunk out of the generosity of your knowledge. There is one person who would not be expecting me to write this; he would be expecting a phone call or a quiet email instead, sometimes, in the dead of the night or at such odd moments when my intrusion battles for attention with a bottle of red claret or the warm embrace of a loving arm. Harry Garuba (HG), thanks for everything. But, where is Wahala? To all my friends – yes, YOU! – fraternal greetings. And to that group of people without whom I could not be, whose presence fills those grey mornings with gay laughter: my father, Jonathan Olaniyi, my brother Taiwo, my sisters Funmi, Kehinde and Adenike. And to the fruits of my loin, who continue to make my nights a truncated ritual with sagely sayings such as ‘Daddy, I love you!’ followed immediately by ‘Daddy, can I have my hot chocolate now… please?’; Faderera, Adeloyeakin and Fadesewa. Finally, the spare bone from my ribs, Dee. Thanks, all. Abstract This thesis examines the development of Femi Osofisan as a dramatist and his contribution to world drama. I used his plays to explore how he exploits his Yoruba heritage by reading new meanings into myth and re-writing history to comment on social issues. In Chapter One, I relate the influence of colonialism and Western drama on the drama of Femi Osofisan. Osofisan grew up under British colonial influence in Nigeria; his secondary and university education were during the early years of independence. He was also influenced by the cultures of Yoruba Travelling Theatre, storytelling, rituals and festivals among the Yoruba people. Chapter Two offers a comparative critique of the writing of Wole Soyinka, Osofisan’s foremost dramatic influence, with that of our playwright. Chapter Three examines Osofisan plays of the 1970s but also includes two plays written in 1967 and 1968. Nigerians who became major writers in the 1970s were referred to by the Nigerian press, academics and critics as ‘the angry young men of Nigerian literature’ because of their Marxist orientation and because of their commitment to societal change. With University of Ibadan as their base, these writers sought to sensitise the societal psyche, or, in the English rendering of the name of the drama group formed by Osofisan during this period, Kakaun Sela Kompani, to produce his plays and sensitise the people to a radical political consciousness. Osofisan also experimented with many dramatic forms during the period. By 1980s, Osofisan’s drama began to challenge popular myths and historic facts along socialist maxims. Chapter Four will look at his work during this decade. In the 1990s, Osofisan embraced a pan-Africanist quest in his dramaturgy, writing plays like Yungba- Yungba and the Dance Contest (1990), Tegonni (An African Antigone) (1994) and Nkrumah ni!... Africa ni! (1994). This chapter assesses these dramas and their contribution to the debate on post-colonialism and pan-Africanism. In Chapter Six, the concluding chapter, I consider the direction of Osofisan’s dramaturgy since the end of the 1990s until 2008 and assess the relative importance and relevance of his work to world literature. Table of Contents Title page Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii Table of Contents v Introduction 1 Methodology 8 Definition of Terms 10 Myth 10 Performance 11 Drama and Dramaturgy 13 Theatre 14 Festival 14 Overview of the Dissertation 15 Chapter one – Background to Yoruba Theatre Introduction 19 The Yoruba – Socio-Cultural History, Myths and Belief System 20 Yoruba Mythology and Beliefs 22 Alarinjo Tradition and Yoruba Traditional Performances 27 Yoruba Modern Performance Culture 34 The Birth of Nigerian Literary Drama in English 39 Thematic Considerations of Early Literary Drama 44 Chapter 2 – Femi Osofisan: A [Revolutionary] Nigerian Playwright Introduction 46 Osofisan’s Traditional and Childhood Influences 50 Yoruba Influence: the Orunmila and Esu Factors 53 Socialism and Femi Osofisan 58 The Influence of Western Theatrical Forms on Osofisan’s Dramaturgy 61 The Concept of Négritude and Post-Négritude Consciousness 66 The Drama of Osofisan’s Contemporaries 67 Chapter 3 – Rhetoric and Songs of the Weaverbird: The Early Plays Introduction 73 The Early Plays 74 The Cooling Spring: Dramatic Foundation 77 Red is the Freedom Road: War and Its Aftermath 84 The Chattering and the Song: The Riddle of War’s Aftermath 92 Morountodun: Launching the ‘Sweet Trap’ 108 Once Upon Four Robbers: The Magic of Subversion 123 Oriki of a Grasshopper: End of Experimentation? 134 Chapter 4 – Challenging Myths and Re-writing History: Plays of the Eighties Introduction 140 Background 140 Adapting Myths and Re-Writing History 144 Language and Accessibility 147 History and Myth 156 Soyinka’s Ritual Matrix: No More the Wasted Breed 158 Tragic Compressionism: Another Raft 170 Reconciliation and Story-telling: Farewell to a Cannibal Rage 182 The Myth of Violence and Sex: Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels 197 Conclusion 207 Chapter 5 – Pan-African Nationalism and the Quest for Change: Plays of the Nineties Introduction 209 Yungba-Yungba and the Dance Contest: A Rite of Rebellion 212 Tegonni: An African Antigone: Confronting Colonialism 222 Nkrumah-ni… Africa-ni!: A Reflection on the Ideals of Pan-Africanism 243 Many Colours Make the Thunder-King: A Dialogue with Myth 251 The Context of the Play 252 The Myth in Performance 254 Chapter 6 – Conclusion 265 Bibliography 273 1 Introduction The publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 and the inauguration of colonial discourse analysis brought into theoretical focus the ways in which Europe has constructed other peoples and cultures as objects of knowledge to further the aims of imperial domination. What Said’s analysis of Europe’s construction of the Orient brought to the fore was that more than physical conquest, the more profound and lingering effects of colonialism were the textual conquest and subjugation by which Europe established a discursive hegemony over the ‘other’, the colonies and the various cultural manifestations present in the colonised spaces. While Said’s work focused on the unmasking of the operations of the European agenda in the Orient, writers and artists from Africa and other parts of the colonised world have always consciously or unconsciously, openly or surreptitiously, challenged this discursive domination by contesting the myths and stereotypes and indeed the image of other peoples as authorised by Europe. Additionally, these African writers and artists also challenge the myths and socio-cultural practices of their own people. This challenge and contestation has always been part of the history of resistance to slavery, colonialism and domination, and the re-inscription or re- establishment of a collective identity. Beginning with the narratives of the freed slaves through to the counter-discursive manoeuvres of the négritude movement and lately to the issues surrounding cultural identities, writers from every part of the colonised world have evolved various strategies for countering European representation of the colonial subject. These counter-discursive gestures, which have been collectively classified under the rubric of the Empire writing back to the Centre, have become one of the major themes of post-colonial discourse. Bill Ashcroft et al (1989) and most post-colonial critics conceive of the centre as being located in Europe, in the metropolitan centres of power from which the ‘Empire’ was created and controlled. However, in the works of Nigerian playwright and dramatist Femi Osofisan, the idea of a metropolitan locus in which all power is 2 located is de-centred. While acknowledging the historical significance of this centre, Femi Osofisan sees pockets of power in various kinds of ‘Empire’ authorised spaces and the major impetus of his work has been to question and challenge these. For Osofisan, the Empire is not only the colonial legacy but also the cultural and political heritages inherited by his people. Beginning with Oduduwa, Don’t Go! (1968) through to Isara: A Voyage Around Kongi (2004) and grounding his vision of change in a dialectical reading and re-reading of history and political discourse, Osofisan manipulates the various heritages available to him as a post-colonial as well as post-négritude writer to speak to the challenges facing his society, and to scrutinise the practice of art in the post-colonial ‘Empire’. I describe Osofisan as a post-colonial writer based on Gilbert and Tompkins definition, which argues that post-colonialism, rather than a naïve teleological sequence which supersedes colonialism, is an engagement with, and contestation of colonialism’s discourses, power structures and social hierarchies (1996: 2).