“African Brecht”

The theory and practice of Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre have been influential in the development of literary theatre in sub-Saharan Africa. But while affinities with Brechtian ideals and practice may certainly be seen to exist both in dramaturgy and in audience reception, the characteristic activity of African audiences is typically in complex and uneasy tension with the “Brechtian” impulse. In particular, many African theatergoers are sustained by the conviction that morality is a matter of permanent truths or fixed essences, rather than, as in Brecht’s formulation, of dialectical relationships. The essay examines how audiences’ ingrained ethical opinion may affect interpretation in ways that seem quite un-Brechtian, illustrating its argument from a Nigerian university production of The Good Person of Szechwan. It then proceeds to discuss how patterns of dramaturgy may also be influenced by particular kinds of audience as well as, more generally, by their habitual moralistic expectations, basing its analysis on three published African adaptations of Brecht’s plays.