In What Ways Do the Radical Playwrights Differ from the Older Generation/More Traditional

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In what ways do the radical playwrights differ from the older generation/more traditional dramatists? Use Four (2 each) plays to illustrate your answer.

This essay will assess the work of four different African playwrights who are widely believed to inhabit the received categories of traditional and radical, but who at the same time challenge the inherent assumptions of such categorization. A major focus of this study will be Wole Soyinka’s play Death and The King’s Horseman. This play is particularly interesting because it can be labelled traditional, is set in a colonial context, and yet simultaneously challenges modern thought and raises the status of the indigenous culture. My second study will be a more typical traditional playwright, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin from Ethiopia. Medhin’s play, The Oda Oak Oracle, whilst set in the context of an indigenous community, favours modern thinking (in stark contrast to Soyinka’s work).

For the radical playwrights I have chosen Andrew Whaley’s The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco. Whaley is a white radical Zimbabwean playwright, and his play is set in a post independent Zimbabwe. The play is particularly striking because it reflects not so much a rally cry for revolution as a reflection on the consequences of independence in Zimbabwe. Finally I have chosen Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s play, The Trial of Dedan Kamathi. This is a highly significant work as it was written in the mid seventies, during the older generational writing period, and raised the profile and status of not only an African freedom fighter, Dedan Kamathi, but one who opposed the British.

This essay will seek first to address why radical playwrights and traditional dramatists differ from one another before dealing with the question of what the differences are. It will identify the motivations and generic influences of the writers, and evaluate the impact of those underlying assumptions on their work.

One important factor to consider in addressing the “Why” question is to understand what the writer’s generational perspectives and influences were.

In Andrew Whaley’s play “The Rise and Shine of General Fiasco” Fiasco, a freedom fighter has missed seven years of life in a post-independent Zimbabwe holed up in cave. One of his cell mates Chidhina observes:

You are lucky. You missed the labour queues, the waiting and disappointment. You missed that. You missed becoming a security guard or a driver.[1]

Radical writers could point the finger of accusation at the older traditional African playwrights in the same way. Many traditional playwrights wrote at a time when African countries were living in the hope of independence and so had not yet experienced the broken dreams of many in the wake of independence. Furthermore, their social position in colonial society offered them a measure of protection from such disappointment and disillusionment. Again in Whaley’s play Chidhina reflects the sense of betrayal experienced by many in boldly exposing those he believes are to blame;

You are not some fucking Vukuru (elder) putting on puppet masks and preaching socialism with Swiss accounts.[2]

This cynicism, so starkly portrayed in Whaley’s work, was a justifiable response to the reality of mismanagement by the new leaders, and the tendency of new governments to assume power with the same bias to the colonial mother ship as before.

Radical playwrights reacted against this mismanagement of power and sought to offer a positive revolutionary alternative to the present decadence. Inevitably their historical perspective gave them an advantage over the traditional writers, as they could both see more clearly the legacy of colonialism after independence and benefit from the body of literature laid down by traditional dramatists to both critique and build on.

However a generational perspective is not the only factor influencing the writers and their work. Another crucial response to the “why” question can be seen in the differing ideologies of radical and traditional playwrights. The radical dramatist’s stance can be clearly seen in Dedan Kamathi’s defence in the play, The Trial of Dedan Kamathi:

There are no classes in Africa, we are all freedom fighters.[3]

Kamathi’s words are echoed by radical playwrights in Africa today, who similarly recognise a continuing lack of freedom in society due to the colonial legacy reflected in unbalanced market economies, poverty and a cultural genocide. They too see themselves not just as artists writing plays, but as co- fighters in the struggle for freedom. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Micere Githae Mugoin gleaned their radical instincts not from belonging to the new generation of radical writers, as they studied in the 60’s with many traditional contemporaries, but rather through their own observations of western culture:

Having encountered capitalism in its home ground, we were completely convinced that Imperialism was the enemy of all working peoples. [4]

Thus we see the same imperialistic structures that had so profoundly influenced the writings of the traditionalists having the opposite effect on Thiong’o and Mugo. Clearly, the differences between traditional and radical playwrights cannot be accounted for purely by generational perspective, but also is dependant on their ideological stance.

So let us look in greater depth at their ideological differences. The ideology of the traditional playwrights had been influenced by a “colonial tutelage”,[5] by which they lived “too closely to the social power of new ruling class,”[6] for it not to influence them. They saw themselves primarily as artists, addressing an English speaking educated elitist audience, and, as we shall see, this influence pervades every aspect of their writing.

Soyinka can be taken as an exemplar of this. In Olu Obajemi’s essay on Political theatre in Nigeria, he makes the point that Soyinka was a “fundamental individualist”[7] with a “pride in the individual effort”[8] He states his focus was more on “aesthetics and entertainment rather than with instruction.”[9] This is a thread that runs through all the traditional writers. This pride in their craft meant that the language they employed was not only flowery, but also tried to compete in some measure with other English dramatists through drawing on a strong English literary tradition:

Not while the mountains cry

For water; No my daughter

The river beds sucked dry

Moan out at the greedy skies.[10]

This extract from Tsegaye Gabre Mehdin’s The Oda Oak Oracle reveals the powerful influence of English poetry, with every new sentence beginning with a capital letter. He also uses rhyming couplets in “cry” and “dry” to make the verse flow, although at least the imagery used is familiar to the African mind.

Soyinka’s work displays a similar dependency, reflected par excellence in the words of Elesin in Death and the Kings Horseman. Elesin an African villager with a supposed limited colonial education speaks in English thus:

My will was squelched in the spittle of an alien race and all because I had committed this blasphemy of thought that there might be the hand of the gods in a stranger’s intervention.[11]

Elesin is here contemplating a subconscious thought that he might have given into the temptation of being arrested over his duty as the King’s horseman in committing suicide. Hearing this eloquent speech with echoes of Elizabethan blank verse and oiled by sibilance in the first line to help its flow, might lead to the charge that Elesin is being misrepresented by such ornamental language.

One thing is certain that the radical writers entertain no such subconscious thought when faced with the temptation of using ornamental language over what they see as their duty to communicate to a mass audience. That this fundamental aim underpins their ideology is plain to see in Kamathi’s words:

Rise, Rise workers and peasants of Kenya, our victory is the victory of those working people.[12]

For radical writers to communicate effectively to a mass peasantry audience they have removed ambiguity from their writing, and have chosen simple plain words to minimise different interpretations of meaning. As Obafemi points out, the radical playwrights are committed “to the employment of the theatre to effect social change.”[13] He goes on to say they are “dedicated to a revolutionary theatre aimed towards raising mass consciousness”[14].

This means that, in contrast to the more traditional writers, the radical dramatists are not so much concerned with entertaining their audiences for the sake of art as for the purposes of instructing them and communicating the message of revolution to the people. However, despite the traditional writers concern to satisfy an elitist audience, there is still political intent at play. This can be seen very clearly in the role of Elesin’s son, Olunde, in Death and The King’s Horseman.

Who says we haven’t a defender? Silence! We have our defenders. Little children are our champions.[15]

The failure of Elesin to carry out his duty in committing suicide threatened the traditional succession of the culture, but as long as the children are there to pick it up and carry it on, the indigenous way of life will continue. Olunde does this as the eldest son, so that he can step into his father’s place to accompany the deceased King to his new kingdom, and so avoid the disgrace of “wandering in a void of evil”[16] for eternity. However Soyinka shows a political meaning in Olunde’s death by undermining the colonial authority and, as, Adebeyo Williams posits, “The Elesin ritual negotiates the painful reality of death for the ruling class.”[17]

While this may show the political edge in Soyinka it is also a very different approach to that of the radical writers. Whilst they are raising a battle cry for a people’s revolution, Soyinka is more concerned with influencing and changing the individual. Often as Nkosi states he does this through the “isolation of the gifted”[18] or “maimed individual”[19] which then produces a vision. This is embodied in Olunde, the educated and seemingly westernised son, who returns disillusioned with the hypocrisy of western civilisation to give up his life for the sake of his King’s honour and so fulfil his duty as the eldest son.

Although this suicide may present some problems for the leftist radical writer by its feudalistic nature, preserving the Oyo kingdom and encouraging class entrenchment and class consolidation, the principle of giving African rituals a new political significance has been successfully taken up by radical writers too. In fact they have gone on to provide a new African voice as well, as shown in Thiongo’s play, The Trial of Dedan Kamathi:

And we devised new dances, talking of the struggle before us readying ourselves for the war.[20]

Fanon labels these new African voices as “the bearers of a hybrid identity.”[21] Rather than imitating the colonial past as the more traditional writers were prone to do, the radical playwrights, through their ideological position, capture and create a national African culture. Interestingly, the radical playwrights have also tended to connect more closely with the more functional indigenous forms of African theatre designed primarily for the purpose of performance , as opposed to the traditional generation of writers who created plays for the written text, concerned with their literary careers. Within these performance based plays the boundaries of theatricality have been pushed:

Things are just getting mixed up now between acting and thinking, playing and life.[22]

In the Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco the whole play takes place in a prison cell with only 4 actors, a blanket, and a bucket. The style of performing is very physical, and different techniques are employed such as a “play-within-a-play”, with the audience regularly being addressed by the actors. Once again, we see the ideological concern of the radical playwrights to engage the audience, as with “Brecht’s theatrical experimentation,”[23] trying to penetrate their audiences in order to involve them in the theatrical process. Further, the hybrid nature of the radical dramatists has given Africans the opportunity to explore and reclaim their identity. Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s choice to write a play about Dedan Kamathi was, in itself, a brave attempt to reclaim African history and re-evaluate a Kenyan freedom fighter who had been labelled a terrorist by the British but in the eyes of the people was a hero:

Great commander that he was, great organiser that he was, Great fearless fighter that he was, he was human! (almost savagely bitterly); Too human at times.”[24]

Whist many myths existed about the exploits of Dedan Kamathi and of his ability to make himself invisible to the British, Thiong’o’s play essentially reclaims his humanity. It reveals his strength of conviction in standing up to the injustices of British colonial rule in Kenya, as well as a compassionate side to his nature. The quotation above alludes to this in the decision to spare his brother from the treachery of betraying their cause.[25] This, of course, leads to Dedan Kamathi’s eventual capture and trial.

In contrast to the patriotism of the radical writers, many traditional playwrights could be accused of undermining the struggle for an African identity in their acceptance of contemporary western thinking in place of their more traditional African culture. Frequently the subject of their plays is set in a deeply African context and deals with African issues. Nevertheless, their work betrays the influence of their new western value systems. This can be seen in Tsegaye Gabre Mehdin’s play The Ode Oak Oracle:

The anger of our forefathers

Is only a nightmare

From the world of our dead

While the bitterness

Of an ignored women

Is the truer hell

Raging inside your hut.[26]

The play looks at the dilemma faced by a young married couple who find themselves under a curse condemning their first born to be sacrificed. Goaa, who has been influenced by Christianity, having escaped a shipwreck on a slave ship, advises his friend Shanka not to listen to the Oracle of the Oak Tree. Here he echoes a sentiment, visible throughout the play, that “the anger of the African gods is a nightmare which can be awoken from”. The real drama is seen within the human love triangle of Goaa, Ukutee and Shanka.

Yet, although this tendency to favour modern thinking is a common thread among the traditional generational writers, Soyinka does not fall into this category. On the contrary, he is highly critical of the so called modern thought, and often goes to some lengths to raise the status of the indigenous culture:

I discovered that you have no respect for what you do not understand.[27]

In Death and The King’s Horseman, Olunde makes this observation to Jane; the sympathetic wifeof the District officer, as they talk about Elesin’s supposed suicide. Of course he has gained a lot from successfully studying to become a doctor and living in England, even helping in the Second World War effort. Thus his observation carries even more weight. Adebayo Williams goes so far as to suggest that the Soyinka enables Olunde to function in the play is as his “ideological Spokesman.”[28] Soyinka displayed this same insight in many of his plays, exposing colonialism from the inside and highlighting its assumptions of cultural superiority. So, although Soyinka differed from his counterparts by being a spokesman for African indigenous culture, traditional writers were generally brought together by a privileged position, enabling them to offer both criticism and insight relating tothe colonial elite. However because many of the traditional playwrights had a static and stable view of their indigenous cultures, they have been criticised as being “insensitive to basic structural conflicts”.[29] Thus their tendency to criticise their own traditional culture in favour of modern western thought undermined their position. We see this in The Oda Oak Oracle:

It is you Shanka who first bid defiance to our dead.[30]

The priest brings judgement on Shanka who had, first of all, not accepted the oracle’s wish to sacrifice the first child. Whilst this is a true observation of Shanka’s lack of respect for the oracle and the dead, the play itself never directly criticises either the wishes of the Oracle or the supposed western wisdom that Goaa shares. However, it ends with the gruesome death, one by one, of each character - offering no resolution or way out of the battle between tradition and modern thought, yet leaving a bitter taste in the mouth towards the indigenous cultural wisdom. This ambiguity displayed by traditional playwrights has been identified by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, who criticises the African writer who, when faced with the contradictions and failure of modern thinking in African society, “retreats into individualism, mysticism and formalism.”[31] He goes on to say,

He simply becomes cynical and laughs at everything equally; at capitalism and its exploitive and oppressive social system and of the struggles of the people for total liberation.[32]

It may be considered harsh to level this criticism at all traditional writers, since its sentiment only rings true for some. Indeed, radical writers like Ngugi Wa Thiong’o have themselves journeyed from a position of colonial acceptance and influence to a more radical standpoint today.