Ola Rotimi: "Humanity as my Tribesmen"

Ola Rotimi: "Humanity as my Tribesmen" MARTIN BANHAM ala Rotimi lives somewhat in the shadow ofhis fellow Nigerian dramatist, the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. But while Soyinka commands international respect and admiration, Rotimi's reputation within Nigeria, both as playwright and director, is unsurpassed. Born in 1938 of Yoruba and Ijo parents (a significant cross-community.parentage in terms of Rotimi's committed stance against the destructive elements of tribalism) Rotimi was educated at the prestigious Methodist Boys High School in Lagos, and then in the USA, with degrees from Boston University (B.F.A.) and Yale (M.F.A.), where between 1963 and 1966 he was Rockefeller Foundation Scholar in Playwrighting and Dramatic Literature. Like many other contemporary Nigerian playwrights (Omotoso, Osofisan, Clark-Bekederemo, Sofola, Sowande, Lakoju, etc.) Rotimi works from a base in university teaching, in his case from the universities of Ife and Port Harcourt. His first play, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, was written and produced at Yale in 1966 (and published by OUP in 1977). It is a light-hearted satire which shows alertness to the ridiculous posturing of politicians and some sense of the menace that lurks behind the farce. It is also very "modem" in its ideological stance, with women's role in contemporary politics given considerable emphasis. Rotimi's reputation was established, however, with three major dramas he both wrote and staged following his return to Nigeria in the autumn of 1966 - The Gods Are Not to Blame (produced at the first Ife Festival of the Arts in 1968), Kurunmi (second Ife Festival, 1969) and Ovonramwen Nogbaisi (fourth Ife Festival, 1970). These three plays will be discussed briefly in order to give some insight into Rotimi's methodology and concerns, leading to a fuller discussion of two important later works, If (first performed University of Port Harcourt Theatre, 1979) and Hopes ofthe Living Dead(firstperformed University ofPortHarcourt Theatre, 1985.)1 In an illuminating interview with the Nigerian critic Dapo Adelugba in 1975' 68 MARTIN BANHAM Rotimi said "I am opposed to discrimination or oppression of any sort ... race, creed or ethnic. I take humanity as my tribesmen ... " Within the context of contemporary Nigerian politics this statement demands particular attention. Inter-communal strife and civil war (the so-called "Biafran" war) have bedevilled Nigeria since the late 1960s creating a despair that has been powerfully articulated by the nation's writers. The Gods Are Not to Blame, Kurunmi and Ovonramwen Nogbaisi are all, in some part, political plays, and all deal with the havoc and misery caused by factional conflict. The three plays have their base in mythical or historical action, but all allow parallels to be drawn with contemporary events. Rotimi employs indigenous theatrical means (music and specific musical instruments, song, dance, chants, etc.) to create a trans-Nigerian idiom, whilst at the same time relying predominantly upon English as the language of expression. Here we are immediately confronted with the debate amongst African artists concerning the appropriateness ofusing a "colonial" language. The Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiongo has argued the contra case most powerfully in his essays contained in Decolonising the Mind, 3 and many youngerNigerian theatre workers advocate the use ofPidgin. Rotimi has never avoided this debate (and, as we shall see later in our discussion, in Hopes of the Living Dead has fully engaged with it) but in the Adelugba interview4 he describes his efforts to effect "a domestication of the foreign [English) language ... the attempt at handling the English language within the terms of traditional linguistic identity." All three plays are large scale, almost epic, in concept and execution, dealing with large themes in correspondingly large theatrical terms, employing large multi-skilled casts often working in flexible outdoor courtyard theatres. There is a vigorous physical sense of stagecraft and setting, ofthe plays taking place within the community and not in some discrete (or discreet!) comer. The Gods Are Not to Blame is a re-telling in Yoruba terms of Oedipus Rex. Rotimi describes the circumstances that brought the play about' - primarily a challenge from the distinguished historian Michael Crowder, then Director of African Studies at the University ofIfe, to "write a drama which will be the star...