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18. Theatricality and Social Mimodrama
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18 Theatricality and Social Mimodrama Pius Ngandu Nkashama Textbook de¤nitions of theatre are often based on “performance” and necessarily limit it to the play. It is therefore appropriate to re®ect on the principle of “performance” as the objective and aim of drama. That same de¤nition, however , does not pay suf¤cient attention to the implications of “scenography.” Unconditional factors deal with the relationship that must be established between the actors, on one hand, and the audience, on the other, through the intermediary of the scenic space. If such facts, however, appear de¤nitive in the case of Western theatre, even throughout its different metamorphoses and mutations, the same cannot be said for African theatre, for the term itself is full of ambiguities , and these are not just due to the perspective brought to bear upon theatricality . The classic manuals often dwell at length on “traditional forms” and are often quite tenacious in seeking correspondences in the realm of the religious , the mythic, or especially the magical. It is possible that the literature on the subject contributes to creating such misunderstandings. The role of successive ethnologies, or even certain postulates advanced by cultural anthropology, must not be neglected in this context. However, the most standard references to the works of Bakary Traoré, dating back to around 1958, allow an a posteriori con¤rmation of these partial conclusions. For more than a decade now, prospects for analyzing theatrical productions have become a possibility. Research methodologies have changed, as have the stated desire of authors to arrive at a “theory of theatre” capable of explaining both concrete practices and the various expressions of social mimodrama. This chapter intends to show the close relationships between what is properly called dramatic art and its permanent projections created in social scenography. The topic will be considered from all perspectives, even venturing beyond the stage itself, but an effort will be made to remain within the limits of “production ” and stage modalities as discussed above. The ¤rst part of this chapter presents a consideration of historical tragedy and its resulting dramatic resonances. The second is based upon the prolepses and analepses in the stage play to show how the experience of theatricality produces its own mythologies. The third part touches on the circularity within which the function of theatre acts, using the model of the kotéba, or the concertparty . One of the most important aspects of African aesthetics is its function of transgression. The term thus designated not only marks an instance of subversion or even a power of catharsis but also refers to a manner of institutionalizing a transitive culture by allowing an actual space of rupture from the modalities of the law. That would mean that the observance of the norm as a moment of legitimation of social (and legal) constraints is necessarily effected through such aesthetic acts of social transgression. In a society where the contestation of paternal authority is met with overly severe punishments, the culture simultaneously institutes exaggerated forms of “challenge.” The kotéba, for example, authorizes an appropriation of social discourse by those very persons who are held in total submission by patriarchy’s restrictive “rules.” They can thus “play the father,”debating him or even contradicting him by reducing him to his own social game. In certain Central African communities where the husband’s authority is intransigent , at his funeral rites, the wife who considers herself thwarted by her dead husband’s behavior can “play” his role before his corpse. She can put on his clothing, strut before him out in the open, and recount their private life before a large audience. The scene can thus be extended in time and space, for it can last as long as the audience wishes or as long as it takes for the wife-turnedactor to experience a sense of release. Indeed, this is implicit theatricality, even if it is also a matter of puri¤cation rituals. In my Théâtres et scènes de spectacles (1993), other paradigms are offered, for example those of the bena Mambala. The most revealing model can be found in societies that appear highly restrictive in the area of sexual expression. While they violently repress the least deviations from prescribed norms, they simultaneously authorize certain “theatrical scenes” that are often audacious and do so in a public forum: thus, the dances accompanying the women elders’ display of their pestles or tree trunks as symbolic phalluses or parents of twins’ dramatic mimings of mating...