AFRICAN THEATRE, HISTORY AND POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCE: AN APPRAISAL OF OLA ROTIMI’SOVONRAMWENNOGBAISI
Mubarak Ibrahim Lawan
Al-Qalam University Katsina, Nigeria
Habib Awais Abubakar
Kano State College of Arts, Science and Remedial Studies, Nigeria
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The upward trend in African historical plays drew much attention of researchers to the relationship between history proper and the historical plays or imaginative reconstruction of history. The contention was that, although these plays were primarily regarded as fiction or imaginative reconstruction of the past based on the playwrights' interpretation of history, many theatre scholars argued that the value of these plays prevailed over history to the audience if there is a clash with history proper. This began with Aristotles's assertion that "poetry/literature is more philosophical and elevated than history", and that literary plot tends to be unabridged, corrective and therefore more permanent. Following on from that, this paper theorized, in this work, that historical plays resist and counteract imperial discourse, or jaundiced imperial historians in their biased history of their clash with African monarchs and heroes. Secondly, the paper argued that through the shades of Cultural Resistance that hybridize conventional theatre, postcolonial plays are central in the promulgation of anti-colonial resistance and therefore have the tendency to change a distorted history. Hence theatre, the most symbolic form of art, can be historically corrective and evocatively accurate. To illustrate this, the paper examined a postcolonial play; Ola Rotimi'sOvonramwenNogbaisi. The play reconstructs and corrects a badly damaged and awfully misrepresented African monarch; Oba OvonramwenNogbaisi of the old Benin Empire. The researchers examined the colonial resistance captured by the play, through postcolonial theory, and cast light on the attitudes the play reflects regarding the coloniser and the colonised, the extent to which the play helps in decolonisation process and how the play reconstructs the images of the damaged heroes, so as to restore national pride and integrity.
Keywords:
African historical plays; Postcolonial Resistance; Ola Rotimi
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