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in the

HE discourse on theater and drama is bursting at the seamswith odd Eurocentric "isms'! that

Segun Ojewuyi threaten to marginalize others.Our critics and tnepter theo.ns.tsngve been very anxious.to join inthis salvption chorus. While theseideological postulates are wqrthyot our attention, we must continueto remind ourselves that the.y aret ie product of .some, experiencethat is not particularly interestedin QUJ own discourse and

In the African world while we are still

concerned with the basic humanist needs of God, spirituality,

morality, food, clothing, shelter, health and good governance,

the West has moved on to more 'desperate!' issues. With a

projected surplus in the staggering range of two trillion dollars,

the American economy is unable to contain itself. It is no wonder

that humanity is being transgressed and regressed in the isolating

arenas of sexuality, life in space and e-trading by dot corns.

One of Broadway's most successful dramas in the last two

years is known as The Vagina Monologues, in which women

talk about their relationship with their vaginas. Senator Hillary

Clinton was reported to have been contracted to act in this drama

last fall. A Yale Law graduate and one of the most powerful

women in the world would discuss her vagina with hundreds of

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NE of Broadway's mostsuccessful dramas inthe last two years isknown as The VaginaMonologues.. ..A YaleLaw graduate and oneof the most powerfulwomen in the worldwould discuss hervagina with hundredsof fee-payingaudiences. Whatvoyeurism! We canonly speculate thatthis is the crowningglory for thepostmodernists.

\r

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fee-paying audiences. What voyeurism! We can onlyspeculate that this is the crowning glory for thepostmodernists.

Coming home to Nigeria, it seems that the only time thattheater ever thrived was during the era that began with theefforts of Hubert Ogunde, through Wole Soyinka's 1960Masks. Any further discussion of our live theater has alwaysbeen one lost in the dramaturgy of plays and thoseplaywrights who are lucky enough to get themselvespublished, read and performed in the West. And these arebut a few plays, a few productions from a few names,that,rightly have earned the acknowledgement—Ola Rotimi, WoleSoyinka, Femi Osofisan and, maybe, Bode Sowande, ZuluSofola and Tess Onwueme. The impression given is that ifthere is any form of live theater in the country, it must bethose located within "Ritual" or "Festivals" or at best the"Apidan/Alarinjo" traveling theaters. Whereas those sourceshave served our playwrights very well, there is a practice ofconscientious theater in sharp identification with the social,critical and performative requirements of the nation today.And there are actors, directors, designers and managers oftheatrical enterprise, who, in spite of the daunting odds,continue to stage plays, make movies, and produce televisiondramas. It is a whole generation with its own structures andvision. We shall attempt to collate a path, a possiblemovement and character of the Nigerian Theater in its

struggle through the debilitating throes of panic and StructuralAdjustment 'Privatization' of the last two decades. In doingthis, we shall, very quickly, sketch the state of the theatertoday, by reviewing the history of theater in Nigeria from theearly eighties when it was largely situated in Ife, Osogbo,Ibadan and Benin, to the present when it is largelyconcentrated in Lagos.

The temptation presented by the oddly philosophical leadcharacter in an NTA-lbadan comedy series of the 1980s wassimple and frightening. The character aptly named by hisphilosophical bent was one garrulous "Why-Worry-the-Barber." A little barber's shop was the perfect setting for thehand-to-mouth existence of this World War veteran who wasnever shy in sharing his war adventure. At every opportunity,or at the least agitation from any of his customer-friends, hewould offer his unique postulation. "Why worry?" he wouldask (or urge). "If you worry you go die. You no worry yougo die, so, why worry for notin." While this at its face value,was a strong dose of existentialist offering, he was definitelynot a disciple of Sartre, neither was he a Beckett whoproclaimed there is "nothing to be done". Not that we couldnot borrow some tangible ironies from Beckett. But WhyWorry's postulation was a cry from the depths of a painedsoul who had seen all, done all but was still struggling tocomprehend all. He was asking us to worry, to carefullycomprehend the atrocities around us and urging us to do

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• N many ways these cultural institutions were

— always the first to bear the brunt

of any of the several IMF-

supported economic

catastrophes...One after the other,

many of the earlier mentioned actors and

dramatists were laid off or simply frustrated out of

their positions. Many of the companies went bankrupt,

unable to pay mounting arrears of salaries owed to

their actors, playwrights and directors

something (!).Why Worry's (Akin Lewis) quaint philosophy as well as his

sparse barber's shop, were both symbolic manifestations ofan ailing nation and a stressed people. He was a man inthe evening of his years, casting a constant glance into thepast and wondering with a scream how we got into thismorass. What was unique about the comedy series was thatit was created and acted by a group of young University-trained theater artists—actors, playwrights and directors. Thecast also comprised members of the NTA Theater—Akin Lewis,Tunji Fatilewa, Dele Morakinyo, Bosede Awatefe, SundayStevens, Becky Musa, Olumide Bakare, Jare Adewolu, andSandra Omo Madojemu. They had stealthily continued inthe tradition of the Hubert Ogundes, the Moses Olaiyas,Duro Ladipos, Kola Ogunmolas, Oyin Adejobis and theirmost recent teachers: Wole Soyinka, Dapo Adelugba, WaleOgunyemi, Ola Rotimi, Sonny Ot i , Zulu Sofola, YinkaAdedeji, Bayo Oduneye, Femi Osofisan and Dexter Lyndersay.

This second set of dramatists had received part of theirtraining in British, French and American institutions, oftenin subjects like literature, philosophy and theater. They taughtby practice, writing plays for all manner of situations,including radio, staging plays, writing reviews for newspapers,and acting for television. It was a seamless marriage ofpedagogy and professional theater practice. Without anycareless generalization, their concern was largely the same.

It was/is not only to challenge the hegemony of Europe overAfrican societies, but essentially to carve out a performativestrategy for self definition while articulating the dynamiccomplexities of class, governance and social justice. It is toengineer a strategy for Osofisan's "surreptitious insurrection,"or even more so Soyinka's "Etika revo-wetin?" Such urgent—sometimes disguised, sometimes blatant—calls for socialchange came from a mixed bag of humanist Marxist leanings.A casual foray into the heart of life in our cities — Ibadan,Nsukka, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, Osogbo, lie Ife,Enugu, Onitsha, Benin, Calabar — would easily sanctionthe efficacy of the binary role of these dramatists as teachers/social critics and as performers.

If Festac '77 left us with the impression that it was nothingmore than a big jamboree, the artistic enterprise of the nation,from the forties through the sixties to the seventies and beyond,should not be read in the same vein. It was not all aboutputrid dances garnished with some nostalgic Oba-Nki-O(The King Greets You) stories of feudal celebrations. Therewas a clear signal of what the future portended in Soyinka's1960 Masks with A Dance of the Forest. Following this wasJohn Pepper Clark's The Raft (published in 1964), predictinga drifting nation across the River Niger. Soyinka's Kongi'sHarvest, performed in 1966 a few months before the outbreakof the Biafran war, could as well have been the story of thederailment of democracy by a roguish military class. It was

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• F Festac 77 left us withthe impression that it wasnothing more than a bigjamboree, the artisticenterprise of the nation,from the forties throughthe sixties to the seventiesand beyond, should not beread in the same vein.

in 1968 that Ola Rotimi and Oladejo Okediji came up withRere Run, using the feudal setting of kings and chiefs toexpose the growing corruption and tyranny of the rulingclass.

When Femi Osofisan, Bode Sowande and Bode Osanyinbrought their energies and radical temperament to the platein mid- and late-seventies, there was suddenly a newurgency and a bolder commitment to the practice of theaterin Nigeria. This period saw the productions of Osofisan'sThe Chattering and The Song, Who's Afraid of Solarin, andOnce Upon Four Robbers. Sowande with the Odu Themesstaged Afamako, Farewell to Babylon, and Flamingo. BodeOsanyin's contributions were The New Status, Omo-Odb (TheHouseboy), and The Shattered Bridge (an init ial lyunacknowledged adaptation of Rere Run). Soyinka's OperaWonyosi in 1977 was perhaps the most daring and mostpungent attack on the military class. Why Worry was thecreation of a generation of theater artists who studied undertested masters and had all the scars and promise of theirtraining to show for their efforts and their vision. In theirplays as in Why Worry, they urged us to observe the decay,the shocking paralysis and absolute panic that had takenover the quiet corners of our nation—a nation that oncecomprised people of soul, pomp and pageantry.

These teachers and their campus-based theaters weresuccessful in attracting national and international attentionto universities as reliable decoders of the goings-on in thecountry. University administrators were encouraged; theybuilt more theaters to house new theater programs acrossthe country. With this we saw the birth of the Pit Theatreand Oduduwa Hall at the University of Ife, the Arts Theatreand the University Auditorium at the University of Lagos,and the Arts Theatre at the University of Calabar, to mentiona few. There was also of course the brand new andmonstrous National Theater in Lagos. These facilities served

as replacements to the Obisesan and the Lagos City Halls ofearlier fame. New television stations came to the scene asnew states were created. The Television Station of Oyo State(TSOS), with Laolu Ogunniyi as Director of Programs is onememorable example.

Apart from the traveling companies of the Ogundes,Soyinka's 1960 Masks was the precursor of many morecompanies that would later florish. By the mid-eighties,following in the heels of Soyinka's Orisun Theatre and theUnibadan Masks/Masques, there was the University of IbadanTheatre Company with actors like Sam Loco Efe, AyoOluwasanmi, Toun Oni, Yomi Layinka, Kunle Famoriyo, AjayiOlatide, Clarion Chukwura, Joke Muyiwa, Tunji Sotimirin,and Emmanuel Oga. Equally, Femi Osofisan had started hiscompany—"The Kakaun Sela Company." Its membersincluded Amatu Braide, Tolu Idowu, Tunde Laniyan, LolaFani-kayode, Bimbola Williams, Ayo Akinwale, Segun A.Y.O.Taiwo (late director and founder of the Ayota Theatre in Lagos),Eyobong Ita, Didi Unu Odigwe, Kunle Adeyemo and AkporOtebele (Kappo Productions), Moji Sorunke, Ife Oderinde (late),and this author. All were students at Ibadan, learning tohone their skills. In Ife there had been the Ori OlokunTheatre led by Ola Rotimi with Olu Okekanye, AyantunjiAmoo, Peter Fatomilola, Ojetunji Ojeyemi, Adefisan, KolaOyewo, Muraina Oyelami, Laide Adewale, and many others.When Soyinka took over from Ola Rotimi, the companybecame the Unife Theatre and was often joined by a crop ofhighly talented student actors like Funso Alabi, Niyi Coker,Edmund Enaibe, Awam Amkpa and Ahmed Yerimah.

Perhaps the most exciting of these companies was thePerforming Arts Troupe of the Centre for Cultural Studies,University of Lagos, under the reins of Akin Euba, BodeOsanyin and Uwa Hunwick. This troupe was probably themost unusual collection of talented actors, dancers andmusicians to forge a total African Theatre Company. It offered

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1OVERNMENT must

review its self-servingdefinition of democracy,which so far does not seem toinclude the arts and ourcultural well-being. If not, wewould wake up with thedelicate magic of life suckedfrom our nation's soul.

Lagos its first major opportunity to challenge Ibadan, Ifeand Zaria, where such troupes had been in existence forsome time with considerable success. There were nameslike Jumoke Fashola, Stella Monye, Daniel Koranteng,Francis Awe, Lari Wi l l iams, Yemi Akinremi, ToyinAjetunmobi, Folake Akinremi, Francis Kadiri, Kola Dahomey,Golda John (nee Braide from the Unibadan Masque) LolaEbhotoime, Ademola Olayiwola, Phillips Osumare, JamesAdesunmole, and Adesina Odukoya. While members ofthe Original Ori Olokun Theatre at Ife had been pulled fromthe indigenous theater companies of Duro Ladipo, KolaOgunmola and Oyin Adejobi, the crop of performers at theUniversity of Lagos was pulled from diverse and equallyexciting sources. For example, Daniel Korangteng, aGhanaian, came from playing with Fela Anikulapo Kuti whileLari Williams came from a flourishing professional actingand directing career in the British Theatre. Sometimes, nameslike dele jegede (artist, art historian, and art critic), FemiRobinson (Mr Araba, the headmaster of NTA's VillageHeadmaster), Adeyeye Fadele (late), Rosemary Ngoh andFunmi Adams (recording artist), Joke Jacobs (nee Silva) alsoshowed up on the cast list.

There was definitely the beginning of a very healthy andfluid movement of talents from one company to the other,and from one medium to another. Osofisan wrote the seriesof investigative television dramas for the Unibadan PerformingArts Company then under Jide Malomo, while Sowandewrote, directed and produced "Acada Campus," a mini-series,for NTA network. Wale Ogunyemi was writing for Theater onthe Screen at Ibadan and Bode Osanyin's The ShatteredBridge was moved from the stage to the television. Stategovernments were now giving more funding to the State ArtsCouncils for their resident companies. Not to be forgottenwere other sectors: the vibrant Bendel State Arts Council from

where came Ben Okoegwale, Sam Loco Efe, Efosa Aiwasendo;the Kwara State Arts Council from where came Yomi Layinka,the Lagos State Arts Council, and the National Council forArts and Culture among others.

Dapo Adelugba who directed Ogunyemi's Langbodo,Nigeria's entry at Festac 77, eventually became the Chairmanof the Oyo State Arts Council under the Bola Ige administrationand started a company with a new Theater to house it. Thiswas perhaps the most flourishing period for theater in Nigeriasince 1960. These companies rigorously pushed theboundaries and reinvented the language of theatricalperformance. The clamor for a national troupe for Nigeriawas suddenly re-energized, to cap the glory. In the face ofall the growth, there was always an unsettling uncertaintywith regard to the direction that the country was going. Thiswas Why Worry's main point. These gains of the theaterwould soon —like the promise of the newly independentnation of 1960— be suddenly trapped in a ricocheting panicof weak dreams and sagging will.

Variously harassed, war-worn, panel-beaten, baton-whipped, and gun-lashed through the draconian ages ofthe military and civilian administrations from Ironsi to Buhari,the political foundation of the country grew rickety. The worstcame with the sledgehammer of satanic rulership that becamethe hallmark of the Babangida-Shonekan-Abacha years. Onsucceeding Murtala Mohammed, Obasanjo led the attackon the university system; it would be the turn of theBabangida/Abacha partnership to finish the destruction. Thedemolition of the University system was part of a systematicanti-intellectual culture which denied funds for research andbasic infrastructural development. In addition, university donsand artists with the slightest hint of radical inclinations werearrested on frivolous charges, harassed, tried and sometimesjailed. The campuses were suffused with career secretgovernment operatives who masqueraded as students to

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infiltrate students' communities. Arts Councils and mediastations were not spared from this treatment. While the'troublesome' elite was being dealt with, military schools of"coup studies" were elevated to degree-awarding institutionswith generous funding to the bargain. Even civilian professorswere brought in to teach our gun-totting felons the way tothink.

In many ways these cultural institutions were always thefirst to bear the brunt of any of the several IMF-supportedeconomic catastrophes, with the frightening acronym of SAP:Structural Adjustment Program. In town, people were beingforced into endless days of agonizing and uncertain future.The press was increasingly under attack and, gradually,Nigeria began to gasp for breath. One after the other,many of the earlier mentioned actors and dramatists werelaid off or simply frustrated out of their positions. Many ofthe companies went bankrupt, unable to pay mounting arrearsof salaries owed to their actors, playwrights and directors.Landlords who used to boast about their famous tenantsnow impatiently advised them to go and look for "proper"jobs. Parents, wives, children and the dependants of theseartistes began to wonder if their jeering neighbors and friendswere not right after all. The lessons were hard. The songon the lips of everyone was privatization. But what wasthere to privatize about the arts, and about theater? Whilethe newspaper industry took the lead in showing that privateenterprise was viable (The Guardian and The Concordnewspapers are prime examples), Radio and Televisionremained firmly in the clutch of government.

In 1981, a group of Theater Arts students from fouruniversities—Benin, Ibadan, Jos, and Ife—got together inIbadan. Undeterred by the signs of an ominous future, theleaders and representatives of these institutions inauguratedthe Nigerian Universities Theatre Arts Students Association(NUTASA). In two years, NUTASA's membership grew rapidlyto ten universities, with others waiting to be enrolled asmembers. NUTASA gave birth to the annual theater festivalof plays and ideas known as the Nigerian Universities TheatreArts Festival (NUTAF). Hosting was rotated among thecampuses, beginning with Ibadan, and on to Jos, Benin,Zaria, and Calabar. First, this movement was part of theconscious growth of the theater beyond the University worldsand Arts Councils festivals. While the generation from Soyinkato Osanyin was comprised largely of writers (with theexceptions of Adelugba, Oti and Oduneye), this new groupof theater artists decided to pursue professional careers asactors, directors, designers, dancers, choreographers, andtheater managers. NUTASA and NUTAF were initiatives tocreate an extended platform for their ongoing training andprovide a rich opportunity to test their mettle in preparationfor the life ahead. There were no illusions anymore. Studentswrote, directed, acted, and produced their festivalpresentations. It was after all an era of private enterprise, oftall hats and tall tricks. Important friendships and professionalalliances that would later be very useful were formed throughthese festivals that registered an average of between five andsix hundred students at each occasion. Every year, as theygraduated in batches, they migrated to Lagos in largenumbers in search of professional careers in theater.

A city of multiple identities, Lagos is known to have made

a good number of professionals rich. It also has been knownto make the foolish smart after a couple or so of very searingjolts of life. It is a landscape of perplexing paradoxes.Oyingbo, Iddo, Mushin, Oshodi, Balogun, Sandgrouse, Mile2 and Orile are perhaps some of the most impressive sitesand "theaters." Teeming with all kinds of essences—theliving and the dead, the somnambulant and the catatonic,the hopeless and the hopeful, the buying and the selling,the sane and the insane, the wicked and the angelic—thesesites mark Lagos out as a hugely vibrant theater of charactersin search of a story, or a play, or in search of some cognition.And this was where the fragile souls of our new theatergraduates poured in search of opportunities. Many fell bythe wayside and became traders of wares, like the mendicantin Madmen and Specialists. Many others opted for immediatepositions in advertising agencies, the public relations armsof banks, the oil industry and those wealthy transnationalcompanies. This was their day jobs; their nights were spentat rehearsals.

Quite industrious, they were determined to make adifference. Some sold part of their inheritance to fund theproduction of plays, while others with nothing but will powerregistered new theater companies. These fledgling companieswere often headquartered in the one bedroom apartment ofthe founder or "Director." Otherwise, they were located inthe borrowed premises of a restaurant or a bar that wasowned by some young lady with whom a lot more was shared.The modus operandi was tailored to a briefcase enterprise.The plays were compact, rehearsals were quick and theperformances were intense as if tomorrow would never come.Whatever monies they made, they spent paying up onoverdue rents and preparing new proposals for funding.The hope was that some private institution was watchingand would take up the campaign. If they lacked in anything,it was neither passion nor commitment to the cause of thetheater.

Two young men who were themselves not actors, but whowere simply ecstatic about the whole movement were HakeemShitta (late) and Kole Ade Odutola. Shifta was a martialarts expert before taking to photography. Odutola wastrained at the University of Ife as a botanist; he too took upphotography. Whenever there was a show in the city, theywere there. They took upon themselves the project ofdocumenting history as it unfolded, mostly for no pay. Theirphotographs, the only gratification that budding dramatistswent home with, gave meaning to what otherwise wasregarded as some insanity; some intangible fancy.

At the National Theatre, the Federal Department of Culturewas now producing these companies in monthly seasons ofplays. It was called "The Open Theater". The NationalTheater provided the space, publicity and some technicalassistance. Gates were shared, even if never equitably. Thisoccurred at the same time that the Yoruba traveling theatercompanies moved into movie making. These movies werealso shown at the National Theatre, thus providing-a verykeen competition. With funding from the Ford Foundation,J.R Clark resuscitated the 200-seater Randle Hall at Onikanand named it Pec Repertory Theatre. For three years, he hada resident company and an artistic director in the person ofBayo Oduneye, a senior lecturer from the University of

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Tristram Sharps as Mr. District Commissioner (right), and Chucks Okoye, wielding a gun (centre) in thestage adaptation of Things Fall Apart. © R. Moran.

Ibadan. At Ijoko in Ota, a suburb of Lagos, Bode Osanyinof the University of Lagos opened The Writers' Resort whereperforming artists and writers converged every month.

The big turn-around came in 1986 when Fred Agbeyegbe,lawyer, businessman and politician, collaborated with JideOgungbade (radio drama producer) and Ben Tomoloju (atthat time the Arts Editor of the Guardian Newspapers) toproduce Ajofest Theatre-Splash at the National Theatre. Itwas the biggest theater event since FESTAC 77. It ran for awhole month, and involved about 150 actors, dancers andmusicians. The pool of performers came from Lagos, Ibadanand Ife. Fees and conditions of rehearsals were as professionalas could be - a remarkable improvement on past settings.This was a clean break from the hitherto uncomfortablereliance on government or university for funding. At the endof the festival, many of the actors from Ibadan and Ife neverwent back. There was a flush of renewed efforts by newlyestablished companies to keep theater alive. These companiesincluded Lamb Productions (Albert Odulate), GanganProductions (Ayo Oluwasanmi, Segun Ogunfidodo, SegunOjewuyi and Lara Akinsola), Fezi Productionsflsrael Eboh),and Komitat (Funso Alabi). Kappo Productions (KunleAdeyemo and Akpor Otebele) tapped into Ojukwu's politicalambitions and got him interested in assisting with stagingSoyinka's Kongi's Harvest, which instantly took the companyon tour of the United States. However, by 1987, it hadgenerated a new interest. Foreign cultural agencies like theUSIS and the Alliance Francois became very supportive,

providing funds that made the production of a number ofplays possible. In 1987, USIS supported Lamb Productionsin producing the play. The Man Who Never Died. A yearlater, USIS also funded Sam Art Williams' Home, which wasdirected by Chuck Mike, an Africa-American who relocatedto Lagos from the University of Ife, where he was a facultymember. During this period, the Alliance Frangais fundedOriki of A Grasshopper, by Femi Osofisan; it was producedby Ayo Oluwasanmi. Much earlier, in Ibadan in 1984, USIShad funded Dapo Adelugba's direction of TennesseeWilliams' The Glass Menagerie. With funding from the UnitedStates Information Service, Chuck Mike began his series ofAmerican plays with the Festival of Black American Drama(FESBAD) in 1989. With this, he also established his company— Collective Artistes — thus bringing an international,intercultural dimension to the movement.

The funding sources having expanded, there were moreproductions and more tours. Actors, directors, and designerswere able to freelance, and were usually contracted for specificruns. Before long a healthy movement had resulted. Lagoshad emerged as the last standing center of commerce andeven with plans far gone to move the seat of government toAbuja, many businesses were still reluctant to move. So,our generation of NUTASA graduates, in concert with theveterans of the university and arts council companies of theseventies and early eighties, were now generating newproductions from Lagos and touring the country. In no time,some banks and multinational companies, encouraged by

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those NUTASA graduates who were now part of theircorporate structures, joined the act. The city of Lagos, beinga very heterogeneous entity, was perhaps the right placewith the right attitude for the divergent themes and styles ofthese productions.

In the midst of this, the Federal government establishedthe much sought after National Theatre Company, which, toeveryone's disappointment, was composed of dancers in themain. When it had to stage Soyinka's Death and The King'sHorseman, the National Troupe had to contract top-notchfreelance actors like Olu Jacobs and Taiwo A|ayi-Lycett, bothof whom who had made very successful strides on the Englishstage. In 1990, Becky Musa, an ex-NUTASA member andnow a member of Collective Artistes, was down with a life-threatening ailment. The movement came together andmounted a fund-raising campaign to get her medicalattention in England. The campaign brought to the fore theissues of health care, insurance and other union-relatedissues. The campaign was successful and riding upon thewave of efforts by some other actors like Efosa Aiwasendoand Ignis Ekwue, the movement organized its members intoa national professional organization akin to the Actors Equity.In fact, it researched the equity rules book in fashioning itsown constitution. The main goals were to establish a uniformprofessional modus operandi for members and create anenabling environment for the development of professionaltheater in Nigeria. It was a landmark. This body was knownas the National Association of Nigerian Theatre ArtsPractitioners (NANTAP), with Mahmood Ali-Balogun an ex-NUTASA/NUTAF member, as its first National president.NANTAP quickly became the most virile advocacy organizationfor the performing arts in the country. It got busy with thebold plan to establish a national endowment for the artswith funding from private institutions and donors.

It was this state of labored growth and panic thatcharacterized Nigerian theater from the mid-eighties to themid-nineties. In 1993, Babangida annulled a widelysuccessful election and the country was thrown into a much-anticipated chaos. Abacha took over and mounted a vigorousclamp-down on public expressions, forcing the press andcultural institutions like theater companies that were perceivedas being critical of government to go underground. Thetransnational companies and foreign agencies which werenow the lifeline for these theater companies cut theiroperations drastically, and the funding for plays dried upimmediately.

For six years the dark ages would reign again. The boldeffort by Lagos to house Nigeria's theater as is done in thebig cities of the world—Moscow, New York, Paris, London,Rome, Greece, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, Bombay,and Johannesburg—was suddenly aborted. At theInternational Theater day celebration hosted by NANTAP in1994, Ray Orley, USIS Cultural Attache, asked, "Where isNigerian Theater?" He was asking a deeply socio-historicalquestion from outside the pot. Part of him was searching forthe buildings and the air-conditioned foyers with coffeepotsand cookies, while part of him was marveling at theintimidating paralysis of a militarized society. Some wouldsay the project of the Ogunde/Soyinka generations torediscover for us our African persona is done. I would argue

otherwise. The work of this generation of theater artistswhose journey we have traced here is but a continuation ofthe agenda pursued by the Soyinkas, Achebes, Osofisans,Osanyins, Sofolas and their precursors. They have wovena tapestry of theatrical styles that is ever inventive, freelytraversing the strategic performative boundaries orgeographies imposed on theater by the Western theoristsand 'mapmakers' whose definition or review of AfricanTheater has always been myopic. Importantly, theyemphasize a socially and politically dynamic role for thetheater.

The Nigerian Theater of the eighties through the twenty-first century will continue to be, first and foremost, African.Yet, it would never shy away from the project of liberatingitself from the domination of exploitative agencies, be theyEuropean, American or even local. If we are to answerOrley's question and by so doing educate our Westernexperts on Nigerian Theater, we should say it is more thanrituals, more than festivals, and more than concert partiesorAlarinjo. And it is not AGITPROP either! It is a totality ofall of these entities, experiences and more. It is to be foundin our Nigerian persona, a unique socio-polit icallyconditioned humanity. That persona is not one frozen andtrapped by the conditional discourse on Afrocentricity — anostalgic and emotional, anti-Eurocentric definition of Africaand Africans from a Diasporic perspective. Neither is it onedefined, abused and controlled by one of those Eurocentric"isms" like Postmodernism.

The movement I have described, and which I wasprivileged to be a part of, was one in constant flux, reinventingits strategies and production exegesis as it went along. Itsreality was, and remains, European and African, the twomajor influences on its experience. We contended with theWestern critical, performative and expressive nature of thegenre and spaces within which we defined the praxis of ourshows and, yet, we drew freely from the opposing traditionsand institutions into which we were born, and from whichwe were wrought. My own personal life—and even myname—demonstrates this affinity with tradition, this constantsynthesis that today's theater artist employs.

My grandfather, Ojeyemi, who now heads the powerfulbody of Oje in Ikirun continues to sustain his role as thecustodian of the agelong cult of Oje; he also doubles asthe artistic director of the egungun 'theater' in Ikirun, withhis repertoire of casts—Owolewa, Agbegijo and co. Everyseason, his cast of spirits and performers respond to theirtrue missions, updating their strategies to serve their kingand people without fail, and in growing strength. That isthe way our culture works. That is the way our custodianshave performed their roles. I see the role and the efforts ofthis movement that I have described in the same vein. WhatI have done in the theater, be it in Nigeria or the West, I seeas a natural progression, a carrying forward with the sameseriousness of purpose. Our strategies may necessarily differbut I still freely draw from that tradition, even when I struggleto understand Soyinka, Shakespeare, Brecht or AugustWilson for that matter.

This is what four generations of Nigerian theater havedone. It is both inter- and intra-cultural—a dialogue withself in the glare of alien realities. This is where Nigerian

GLENDORA BIVIBW></l//tawj Quarterly on the>t/rc><V0l3@No8>< 9 6 >

theater is located. There has been no other period in ourhistory where the role of theater in the society has been morechallenged than the last two decades of the twentieth century.And Lagos was the arena where we were all forced to confrontthe poverty of means within our homes, the lack of jobs, ofroads, of food, the sequential impoverishment of our integrityand, worse, the poverty of dreams in our people'soverburdened souls. Government must review its self-servingdefinition of democracy, which so far does not seem to includethe arts and our cultural well-being. If not, we would wakeup with the delicate magic of life sucked from our nation'ssoul. Left would be the cadavers of wasted promises, wasted

RESEARCH INAFRICANLITERATURES

I IXVI Research in African Literatures, edited by Abiola Irele, is the premier journalJFiJtt* of African literature studies worldwide and serves as a stimulating vehicle inEnglish for research on the oral and written literatures of Africa. Reviews of currentscholarly boob, often presented as review essays, are included in every number, and aforum offers readers the opportunity to respond to issues raised in articles and bookreviews. It is published quarterly.

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WORKS CITEDApter, Andrew. Black Critics and Kings. The Hermeneutics of Powerin Yoruba Society. University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Awodiya, Muyiwa P. ed. Excursions in Drama and Literature:Interviews with Femi Osofisan. Ibadan: Kraft, 1993.

Banham, M., Hill, E. and Woodyard, G. The Cambridge Guide toAfrican & CarribeanTheater. CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994.

Gilbert, Helen andTompkins, Joanne. Post-Colonial Drama: Theory,Practice, Politics. NewYork: Routledge, 1996.

Send order* to:Su/»< riptiim- Send on

Individuals: SIH.0UInstitutions: $7 >.(MForeign suruuc posl: S1-. >*>single I^UP shipping SVIHI lot om

, IN 4:411-1 I N,\

Indi.iii.liduin.la'du -lup

O l a n i y a n , T e j u m o l a .Scars of Conquest, Masksof Resistance.

Oxford University Press,1995.

"Femi Osofisan: The Formof Uncommon Sense."Research in AfricanLiteratures. 30. 4 (1999):74-91.

Osofisan, Femi. "TheRevolution as Muse:Drama as SurreptitiousInsurrection in a Post-Colonial, Military Stale."t h e a t e rMatters.Performance andCulture on the WorldStage. Richard Boon andJane Plastow (eds.)Cambridge: CambridgeUP, 1998. pp.11-35.

Reinelt, G. Janelle andRoach, Joseph R, ed.Critical Theory andPerformance. TheUniversity of MichiganPress, 1998.

Soyinka, Wole. Art,Dia/ogue and Outrage.Essays on Literature andCulture. London: Pantheon

, Books, 1993.