Syncretic Arenas: Essays on Postcolonial African Drama and Theatre for Esiaba Irobi(177 Cross/Cultures)

This collection in part examines the legacy of the consummate Nigerian stage artist and scholar, Esiaba Irobi (1960–2010). Poems, tributes, and studies celebrate Irobi’s significance as actor, playwright, director, poet, and theatre theorist. Irobi’s life, temper, times, and career are inextricably linked to the history, development, concerns, and uses of drama and theatre in Africa. The contributions highlight the evolution of autochthonous theatrical practices: the interaction between Western and indigenous African performance traditions; colonial/postcolonial government policies and the mutations of drama and theatre (and critical commentary); the tensions inherent in postcolonial conceptions of history, identity, nationhood, and articulations of alternative aesthetics, pedagogies, and epistemologies for postcolonial African theatre; staging African plays in the West; and the constituencies of the contemporary African playwright and director. The strength of these studies derives primarily from nuanced examinations of the concerns and careers of particular African playwrights; the history, offerings, and fortunes of particular theatrical arenas, and close explorations of specific performances and texts. The foregrounding of correspondences in the dramaturgies and intellectual ferment of the continent critically accentuates equally privileged regional, historical, and other crucial specificities. Situated in time and place while underscoring the political and intellectual intersections of a shared history of colonialism, the contributions to Syncretic Arenas, individually and collectively, reveal the transformations and growing strengths of postcolonialism as an analytical strategy.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures Acknowledgements “Foreword”, Helen Gilbert “Introduction”, Isidore Diala Part One “Esiaba Irobi: The Tragedy of Exile”, Olu Oguibe “Esiaba Irobi: A Personal Note”, Martin Banham “Esiaba Irobi and His Muse”, Georgina Alaukwu–Ehuriah “Remembering Esiaba Irobi at the International Research Centre ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’ in Berlin, 2009–2010”, Erika Fischer–Lichte “Esiaba Irobi: Death Does Not Kill a Song”, Femi Osofisan “On My Birthday”, Tanure Ojaide “Omonla: Your Like Will Never Be There Again – 7 Prose Poems/Haikus”, Biodun Jeyifo “Half a Century Death”, Benedictus Nwachukwu “Madding Crowd”, Obiwu “Seven Stations of the Cross”, Olu Oguibe “Esiaba Irobi’s Legacy: Theory and Practice of Postcolonial Performance”, Isidore Diala “Between Soyinka and Clark: The Dynamics of Influence on Esiaba Irobi’s Nwokedi”, Henry Obi Ajumeze “Eclipsed Visions: Esiaba Irobi Interviewed”, Leon Osu Part Two. Esiaba Alone and in Company: A Photo Gallery “Theatre and Modernization in the First Age of Globalization: The Cairo Opera House”, Christopher Balme “Autobiography as Counter-Memory in The Orange Earth of Adam Small”, Hein Willemse “Directing Politics: Soyinkan Parallels in the Works of Uganda’s Robert Serumaga”, Don Rubin “Afrika Cultural Centre: Phoenix Under Apartheid and Burnt Ember Under Democracy?”, Bhekizizwe Peterson “The Anxiety of Class in Kenyan Drama: A Reading of Boy’s Benta and Sibi-Okumu’s Role Play”, Christopher Odhiambo Joseph “A Heritage of Violence: Paradoxes of Freedom and Memory in Recent South African Play-Texts”, Anton Krueger “African Drama and the Construction of an Indigenous Cultural Identity: An Examination of Four Major Nigerian Plays”, Kene Igweonu “The Creative Development, Importance, and Dramaturgy of Duro Ladipo’s Ÿba Kò So”, Oluseyi Ogunjobi “Critical Responses: The Evolution of the Theatre Critic in South Africa”, Temple Hauptfleisch “‘I want to dialogue’: Chief Muraina Oyelami Talking O‹ogbo and Beyond”, Christine Matzke Notes on Contributors Index

About the Author :
Isidore Diala is Professor of African literature in the Department of English and Literary Studies at Abia State University, Uturu, and author of Esiaba Irobi’s Drama and the Postcolony: Theory and Practice of Postcolonial Performance (2013).