African Drama and Performance

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Tejumola Olaniyan and John Conteh-Morgan part one: general contexts 1. King Baabu and the Renaissance Vision 11 Wole Soyinka 2. Dimensions of Theatricality in Africa 24 Joachim Fiebach 3. Theatre and Anthropology, Theatricality and Culture 39 Johannes Fabian 4. Pre-Texts and Intermedia: African Theatre and the Question of History 46 Ato Quayson part two: intercultural negotiations 5. Soyinka, Euripides, and the Anxiety of Empire 55 Isidore Okpewho 6. Antigone in the “Land of the Incorruptible”: Sylvain Bemba’s Noces posthumes de Santigone (Black Wedding Candles for Blessed Antigone) 78 John Conteh-Morgan 7. Gestural Interpretation of the Occult in the Bin Kadi-So Adaptation of Macbeth 88 Marie-José Hourantier 8. Yoruba Gods on the American Stage: August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone 94 Sandra L. Richards part three: radical politics and aesthetics 9. Femi Oso¤san: The Form of Uncommon Sense 109 Tejumola Olaniyan 10. Revolution and Recidivism: The Problem of Kenyan History in the Plays of Ngugi wa Thiong’o 126 Nicholas Brown 11. The Politics and Theatre of Sony Labou Tansi 144 Dominic Thomas part four: popular expressive genres and the performance of culture 12. Theatre for Development and TV Nation: Notes on Educational Soap Opera in South Africa 155 Loren Kruger 13. Literacy, Improvisation, and the Virtual Script in Yoruba Popular Theatre 176 Karin Barber 14. “How They See It”: The Politics and Aesthetics of Nigerian Video Films 189 Akin Adesokan 15. Modernity’s Trickster: “Dipping” and “Throwing” in Congolese Popular Dance Music 198 Bob W. White part five: the social as drama 16. Theatres of Truth, Acts of Reconciliation: The TRC in South Africa 219 Catherine M. Cole 17. The Turner-Schechner Model of Performance as Social Drama: A Reexamination in Light of Anlo-Ewe Haló 227 Daniel Avorgbedor 18. Theatricality and Social Mimodrama 238 Pius Ngandu Nkashama Bibliography 249 Contributors 269 Index 273 vi Contents ...