Syncretic arenas : essays on postcolonial African drama and theatre for Esiaba Irobi / edited by Isidore Diala.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Diala, Isidore, editor.

Series:

Cross/cultures ; 177.

Cross/Cultures. Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English ; 177

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African drama--History and criticism.

African drama.

Irobi, Esiaba, 1960-2010.

Irobi, Esiaba.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (381 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam, Netherlands ; New York : Rodopi, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

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 [For Esiaba Irobi] / Biodun Jeyifo

Half a Century Death / Benedictus Nwachukwu

Madding Crowd (For Esiaba Irobi and Kofi Awoonor) / Obiwu

Seven Stations of the Cross (for Esiaba Irobi) / Olu Oguibe

Esiaba Irobi’s Legacy: Theory and Practice of Postcolonial Performance

Between Soyinka and Clark: The Dynamics of Influence on Esiaba Irobi’s Nwokedi / Henry Obi Ajumeze

Eclipsed Visions: Esiaba Irobi Interviewed / Leon Osu

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 Ọba 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 Oṣogbo and Beyond / Christine Matzke

Notes on Contributors

Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed December 19, 2014).

ISBN:

94-012-1180-9

OCLC:

893409261

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789401211802 DOI