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I was late to the party of Professor Wole Soyinka’s plays. The Nobel Laureate’s memoirs were my introduction to his oeuvre, but it wasn’t until 2018 that I finally read my first of his plays, The Lion and the Jewel. While Soyinka’s memoirs recount his relentless struggles to defend justice and human dignity against oppressive regimes through which he has lived, it is his plays that most directly reflect and comment upon the realities of those regimes. Though most of these plays were written and first performed decades ago, highlighting the ills of those seemingly distant times, their universal and timeless concerns continue to resonate strongly with us today.
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of seven Wole Soyinka plays that feel as though they were written today. Whether first performed in 1960 or focused on specific issues like war or military dictatorship, the plays on this list feel eerily relevant to our present time and circumstances.
Read our recommendations below and read our latest print issue on Soyinka’s legacy here.
A Dance of the Forest
Author: wole soyinka
Genre: drama
Though Soyinka wrote this play to be performed at the Nigerian independence celebrations in 1960, he had more critical intentions than mere mindless celebrations. Beyond jubilations about the newly gained independence, Soyinka took the opportunity to sound a note of warning to Nigerian and African leaders: do not repeat the mistakes of the past.
A Dance of the Forests presents a cyclical world in which political patterns are repeated through history. In the first part, we meet a host of characters—Demoke, Rola, Adenebi, Agboreko, Dead Man, Dead Woman—unwittingly bound by their past lives. In the present, the first four meet in a forest as their nearby town is preparing for a festival. For the festival, the deity Aroni has summoned two ancestors, Dead Man and Dead Woman, who were wronged in their lives by past incarnations of the first four characters.
In the second part of the play, Soyinka takes us back eight centuries to the court of Mata Kharibu, an African ruler. This was during the lifetime of the Dead Man, a general called ‘the warrior’ and his pregnant wife, the Dead Woman. Refusing to lead his soldiers to fight Mata Kharibu’s senseless war, the warrior is castrated and enslaved. Soon after, his pregnant wife dies. All four characters from Part I, Demoke, Rola, Adenebi, and Agboreko, were members of Mata Kharibu’s court (the court poet, Madame Tortoise, the court historian, and the Soothsayer, respectively) who were involved in the Warrior’s judgement.
Alápatà Àpáta
AUTHOR: Wole soyinka
GENRE: drama
Alaba, an extremely skilled butcher, becomes the centre of attention when, suddenly in the middle of a highly successful career, he decides to retire and settle on a rock in the neighbourhood. Every day, he takes his position up there, doing nothing but looking down on the town, much to the people’s consternation. This earns him the name, Alápatà Àpáta (Butcher of the Rock).
Different people interpret the new development in different ways. Unknown to Alabi, under the very rock lies a bank of minerals government officials are keen on tapping. So, to the government, Alabi is a nuisance that must be gotten rid of. Ironically, to a student leader engaged in struggles against the government, Alabi appears to be a government agent, spying on the government’s enemies. A pastor meaning to build his church on the rock considers Alabi a competitor, and to a traditional worshipper, Alabi is an Èṣù incarnate.
Published in 2011, Alápatà Àpáta is one of Soyinka’s most recent plays. It is a satire mocking Nigerian politics and the power tussle that characterizes the society.
A Play of Giants
AUTHOR: wole soyinka
GENRE: drama
This important 1984 political satire takes a shot at the authoritarian African dictators of the 1970s and 1980s, but as dictatorship seems lately to be making its way back into the African continent, it has become even more relevant today.
In the fictional Bulgaran Embassy in New York City, four African dictators meet and try to negotiate international affairs. Soyinka, through his ingenious use of wit and exaggerated caricatures, paints a vivid portrait of each ‘giant’s’ absurdities, making a biting statement on power, politics, and the human condition.
Cassava Republic Press is proud to announce the launch of their inaugural $20,000 Global Black Women’s Non-Fiction Manuscript Prize dedicated to exceptional works by Black women. Deadline: 30th June 2024. Learn more here.
Kongi’s Harvest
AUTHOR: Wole soyinka
GENRE: drama
Set in a fictional African country called Isma, this 1965 play satirizes the political scenes of many post-independent African countries. We meet Kongi, a modern dictator who has just deposed the traditional ruler, Oba Danlola.
After successfully imprisoning Danlola and his wives and advisors, Kongi wishes to legitimize his own rule by taking charge of the traditional New Yam festival, which is the spiritual prerogative of the king. Danlola refuses to give up this power, causing Kongi to go through any means necessary. He attempts to unify the different tribes of the country, and orders Daodu, Danlola’s nephew and spiritual heir, to pay tribute in the form of yam. But before Kongi can receive the yam, army rebels invade and take power, shooting Kongi dead.
Madmen and Specialists
Author: wole soyinka
Genre: drama
Madmen and Specialists, published in 1970, a year after Soyinka was released from his 22-month-long imprisonment during the Nigerian Civil War, is essentially an anti-war tract. Its preoccupation is in portraying the psychological and moral consequences of war.
We meet Dr. Bero, a former army doctor who returns home from war forever changed. Upon his return, he imprisons his father, a humanitarian, and unleashes a series of schemes to gain more power and control.
Madmen and Specialists is a surreal play that features dreams, madness, philosophical debates about morality, and more.
THE BEATIFICATION OF THE AREA BOY: A LAGOSIAN KALEIDOSCOPE
AUTHOR: wole soyinka
GENRE: drama
This 1995 play shines a critical light on the absurdities of the Nigerian society and the excesses of military rule. Set in a Lagos mired in political oppression and human rights abuses, the play portrays how military regimes corrupt the moral and ethical fabric of society.
Sanda, a university dropout turned Lagos ‘area boy’, is at the centre of action. A security officer at a shopping plaza, he is ordered to clear the plaza in preparation for a high-profile wedding between two prominent families which the military governor of Lagos plans to attend. Being the plaza’s security officer, Sanda is naturally at the wedding, doing his job.
But in a shocking turn of events during the ceremony, the bride, Miseyi, a former classmate of Sanda’s, chooses him as her groom. This leads to commotion, as accusations are spat all around. The bridegroom’s family accuses the bride’s family of a deliberate intent to embarrass them, following the awarding of a government contract—for which both families had bid—to the bridegroom’s family. Insulted, the military governor orders soldiers to shut down the plaza.
Amidst all the commotion, Sanda sees a ripe opportunity to make good money.
THE TRIALs of brother jero
AUTHOR: WOLE SOYINKA
GENRE: DRAMA
The Trials of Brother Jero is one of Soyinka’s most performed plays. First performed at the University of Ibadan in 1960, the play is as old as Nigeria itself. It is a satirical comedy that takes religious hypocrisy and manipulation as its focus.
Brother Jero, the eponymous character of this play, is a wily young man. A self-proclaimed prophet, he runs a beachside church in Lagos, Nigeria, where he manipulates his followers to his own benefits. He knows the deepest desires of the common person—riches, power, status, etc.—and gives them fake prophecies that feed their illusions. In return, they fund his lifestyle.
Through wit and humour, Soyinka achieves a potent critic of the commercialization of religion and the moral decay within religious leadership, societal ills that are still with us today.