Adaptations of Play Songs in Ghanaian Children’s and (Young) Adult Drama

This article examines the adaptation of children’s play songs as a thematic and structural frame in three Ghanaian plays: Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), Efua Theodora Sutherland’s Tahinta! A Rhythm Play for Children (1968), and Martin Okyere Owusu’s The Story Ananse Told (1970). Ghanaian folklore tropes present in the play songs are used to externalize the thoughts and feelings of the solitary male protagonists, as each of them undergoes a manhood test in an encounter with a specter in the wilderness that turns out to be a test of his ability to cope with the unknown—his own existence.