Ancient Songs Set Ablaze constitutes the first systematic study of the plays of Femi Osofisan, winner in 1983 of the first Assciation of Nigerian Authors prize for drama. Osofisan is one of the most respected and prolific African writers. He uses a postcolonial history of poverty political unrest, and social corruption to create theatre pieces that range from social protest dramas, to murder mysteries, to farces. His style encompasses such African performance practices as story-telling, dance dramas, and dilemma tales. As his work gains in popularity in the United States, Osofisan has begun to obtain commissions and productions on American college campuses and regional theatres nationwide.

In retracing some of the routes followed by West African literature in English over the course of the last three decades, this book employs an original multidimensional approach whereby the three main genres - narrative, poetry and drama - are considered in the light of their intricate web of fecund rapport and mutual influence.Authors such as Tutuola, Armah, Aidoo and Awoonor translated the fluid structures of orality into written prose, and consequently infused their works with poetic and dramatic resonance, thereby challenging the canonical dominance of social realism and paving the way for the birth of West African magical realism in Laing, Okri and Cheney-Coker.Starting in the 1970s, poetry on stage has become a mainstream genre in Ghana, thanks to performances by Okai, Anyidoho and Acquah.Boundaries between literary theatre and other genres have undergone a similar dissolution in the affirmation of the concept of 'total art' from Efua Sutherland to ben Abdallah, Osofisan and others. Fertile Crossingsoffers a study of these topics from various viewpoints, blending in-depth textual analysis with reflections on the political import of the works in question within the context of the present state of African societies, all supported by interviews with most of the authors.

This collection of contemporary postcolonial plays demonstrates the extraordinary vitality of a body of work that is currently influencing the shape of contemporary world theatre. This anthology encompasses both internationally admired 'classics' and previously unpublished texts, all dealing with imperialism and its aftermath. It includes work from Canada, the Carribean, South and West Africa, Southeast Asia, India, New Zealand and Australia. A general introduction outlines major themes in postcolonial plays. Introductions to individual plays include information on authors as well as overviews of cultural contexts, major ideas and performance history. Dramaturgical techniques in the plays draw on Western theatre as well as local performance traditions and include agit-prop dialogue, musical routines, storytelling, ritual incantation, epic narration, dance, multimedia presentation and puppetry. The plays dramatize diverse issues, such as: *globalization * political corruption * race and class relations *slavery *gender and sexuality *media representation *nationalism

Classical material was traditionally used to express colonial authority, but it was also appropriated by imperial subjects to become first a means of challenging colonialism and then a rich field for creating cultural identities that blend the old and the new. Nobel prize-winners such as Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney have rewritten classical material in their own cultural idioms while public sculpture in southern Africa draws on Greek and Roman motifs to represent histories of African resistance and liberation. These developments are explored in this collection of essays by international scholars, who debate the relationship between the culture of Greece and Rome and the changes that have followed the end of colonial empires.

The Performance Arts in Africa is the first anthology of key writings on African performance from many parts of the continent. As well as play texts, off the cuff comedy routines and masquerades, this exciting collection encompasses community-based drama, tourist presentations, television soap operas, puppet theatre, dance, song, and ceremonial ritualised performances. Themes discussed are: * theory * performers and performing * voice, language and words * spectators, space and time. The book also includes an introduction which examines some of the crucial debates, past and present, surrounding African performance. The Performance Arts of Africa is an essential introduction for those new to the field and is an invaluable reference source for those already familiar with African performance.

This second annual volume in the African Theatre series focuses on the intersection of politics and theatre in Africa today. Topics include the remarkable collaboration between Horse and Bamboo, a puppet theatre company based in the United Kingdom, and Nigerian playwright Sam Ukala that was inspired by the infamous execution of Nigerian playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni activists; the plays of Femi Osofisan; and plays by Ghanaian playwrights Joe de Graft and Mohammed Ben-Abdallah. African Theatre features the work of Mauritian playwright Dev Virahsawmy and includes an interview with him, reviews of an English production of his play, Toufann, as well as the translated playscript. Reports of workshops and conferences, reviews, and news of the year in African theatre make this volume a valuable resource for anyone interested in current issues in African drama and performance.

This book explores contemporary African adaptations of classical Greek tragedies. Six South African and Nigerian dramatic texts – by Yael Farber, Mark Fleishman, Athol Fugard, Femi Osofisan, and Wole Soyinka – are analysed through the thematic lens of resistance, revolution, reconciliation, and mourning. The opening chapters focus on plays that mobilize Greek tragedy to inspire political change, discussing how Sophocles’ heroine Antigone is reconfigured as a freedom fighter and how Euripides’ Dionysos is transformed into a revolutionary leader. The later chapters shift the focus to plays that explore the costs and consequences of political change, examining how the cycle of violence dramatized in Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy acquires relevance in post-apartheid South Africa, and how the mourning of Euripides’ Trojan Women resonates in and beyond Nigeria. Throughout, the emphasis is on how playwrights, through adaptation, perform a cultural politics directed at the Europe that has traditionally considered ancient Greece as its property, foundation, and legitimization. Van Weyenberg additionally discusses how contemporary African reworkings of Greek tragedies invite us to reconsider how we think about the genre of tragedy and about the cultural process of adaptation. Against George Steiner’s famous claim that tragedy has died, this book demonstrates that Greek tragedy holds relevance today. But it also reveals that adaptations do more than simply keeping the texts they draw on alive: through adaptation, playwrights open up a space for politics. In this dynamic between adaptation and pre-text, the politics of adaptation is performed.

Fémi Òsófisan is a major dramatist from Nigeria who experiments with forms and theatrical traditions. This book focuses on his development as a dramatist and his contribution to world drama as a postcolonial African writer whose major preoccupation has been to question the colonial and postcolonial issues of identity in theatre, literature and performance. The volume explores how Òsófisan exploits his Yorùbá heritage in his drama and the performances of his plays by reading new meanings into popular mythology, and by re-writing history to comment on contemporary social and political issues. Òsófisan has often introduced new motifs and narratives to energise dramatic performances in Nigeria and globally, and this text discusses developments in his theatre practices in the context of changing cultural trends.

Here is an introduction to the history of English writing from East and West Africa drawing on a range of texts from the slave diaspora to the post-war upsurge in African English language and literature from these regions.

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.