Masculine Women, Feminist Men: Assertions and Contradictions in Mawugbe's In the Chest of a Woman

{ 122 } \ Masculine Women, Feminist Men Assertions and Contradictions in Mawugbe’s In the Chest of a Woman —Awo Mana Asiedu In August 2007 there was a special production of Efo Kodjo Mawugbe’s play In the Chest of a Woman at the Ghana National Theatre in Accra. This production was advertised as being in honor of the newly appointed, first female chief justice in Ghana, Georgina Wood. The play was, therefore, to be a celebration of the achievements of women and their right to all that they may aspire to. As the lead female character declares,“In the chest of a woman is not only an extension of the breast and a feeble heart, but a strong desire to hold and use power.” The play, however, presents incidents and female characters that appear to contradict this sentiment. Some believed that the characters, rather than celebrating womanhood, perpetrated conventional stereotypes or presented distorted images of female achievers. This essay was inspired by a phone call from a male colleague who, on seeing the television advertisements for the production, was indignant and felt the play was not likely to advance the cause of women, and wondered what I, as a female theatre academic, was going to do about it. The advertisement, as is often the case, had picked the sensational scenes of the play to generate interest to draw people to the theatre.Although I had seen an earlier production of this play, I had not critically considered the points my colleague raised. I went to see this new production, therefore, with a much keener interest in identifying whether or not it was indeed counterproductive for women. This essay examines the production of this play to discover how it may be seen as a celebration of women. It does this through an analysis of three female { 123 } Masculine Women, Feminist Men characters in the play: the Queen Mother, who became ruler because there was no suitable male heir to become king; her daughter, Nana Yaa Kyeretwe, who displays courage “like a man”; and Owusu Agyema, her granddaughter, who is disguised from birth as a boy. These characters provide an interesting study of three generations of women from the same family who are called upon by circumstances to play “male roles.” I discuss these women in the frame of the play’s purported feminist tendencies , derived from a discussion with the playwright about this particular production of the play. Within this frame, the essay also questions the motivations of male feminists or pro-­ feminist men, such as the playwright appears to be, and whether they need to be reoriented in order to fully achieve their aim of celebrating the female for all she is and can be. Efo Kodjo Mawugbe, a Pro-­ feminist Ghanaian Playwright Efo Kodjo Mawugbe is a Ghanaian playwright and theatre practitioner who has been writing and directing his own plays since the early 1980s. He is currently the artistic director of the National Theatre. He has written about twenty plays, all of which have been performed onstage, on television, or on radio. Unfortunately , however, only one of his plays has, very recently, been published, and although highly deserving, he has received hardly any scholarly attention so far. This is, I hope, set to change as there are plans to publish more of his plays, including APTS: Acquired Prison Traumatic Syndrome (2003),1 a satirical comedy examining the postcolonial condition of Ghana. His only published play, In the Chest of a Woman (2008),2 is the subject of this essay and was recently approved by the Ghana Education Service as a study text in Ghanaian high schools. In the Chest of a Woman, written in 1983, was first produced in 1984, touring the country ’s university campuses. It won the Entertainment Critics Award of ­ Ghana’s play and playwright of the year in 1985. His other plays include Aluta Continua (1979), which was featured on the Union of National Ration and Television Organizations of Africa; The G-­ Yard People (1992); Ananse Kweku Ananse (2007); and Upstairs and Downstairs (2007). In 2006 his play Once Upon a Time in ­ Lagos won third prize in the BBC’s African performance contest. This...