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Africa Theatre Histroy

History of African theatre

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
30 views38 pages

Africa Theatre Histroy

History of African theatre

Uploaded by

justinearkoarhin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Theatre in Africa-OVERVIEW

• Europeans and Americans remained largely ignorant of African


performance traditions until the end of the nineteenth century.

• Nevertheless, African performance activities had through the


centuries been numerous –

• religious rituals, festivals, ceremonies, storytelling, and various


kinds of celebrations – and had been woven into daily life.
Theatre in Africa

• The combination of the colonialist heritage and indigenous forms


created a wide spectrum of performance in Africa.

• There are more than eight hundred local languages in use, and many
local traditions do not necessarily travel well from one part of Africa
to another.

• During the late nineteenth century, European countries divided up


most of Africa among themselves and thereafter sought to impose
their languages and ideas of theatre,

• including proscenium-arch structures, on the territories they


controlled.
EVOLUTION OF THEATRE IN GHANA
•Historically there were two main forms of drama/theatre in Ghana-
popular and Literary

•Popular Theatre describes theatre which speaks to ordinary people in


their own language or idiom, and deals with issues that are relevant to
them.

•Pre-colonial Ghanaian indigenous theatre traditions, which were truly


seen by the majority of the people as integral part of their daily existence

.
• Literary Theatre-theatre with an educational base.

• Literary theatre is a by-product of Africa’s experience with colonialism


and the intervening European theatre traditions.

• This strand of African theatre emphasizes scripted plays, western


literary canons, imported theatre technologies and box office collections

• Literary theatre encourages compartmentalization of the theatre


enterprise into different professional such as

• playwrights, directors, choreographers, designers, critics, etc.


• Ghanaian popular drama draws its vision, themes, techniques
from the country’s longstanding creativity, traditions, struggles
and experiences of the people.

• This may include festivals, funerals, various life associated rituals.

• Various cultural performances.

• It is worthy to note that, these form of dramatic expressions


existed before colonialism.

• With colonialism came, literary theatre.


EARLY INFLUENCES
• The Master Yalley Concerts

• The films and Arts of Al Johnson and Charlie Chaplin

• Ishmael Johnson, Bob Ansah and Benjamin Hutton-The Two Bobs

• The Axim Trio


• The development of Ghanaian theatre (popular) was largely left in
the hands of the ordinary people.

• Theatre did not receive any official sponsorship.


Colonialism and the Growth of
Literary Drama
• Westernisation of Ghana art forms

• Introduction of English Literature in Achimota School under Governor

Guggisburg

• Annual Staff play in Mfantsipim School introduced by Ian Roddick

• In 1955, Joe Degraft introduced Drama as a subject in Mfantsipim School.

• He also reenergized the Annual Staff Productions by extending it to the entire

Cape Coast township.

• He also introduced the Drama Laboratory in the school.


• Most mission schools also performed church dramas as part of their
annual celebrations.

• The formation of Elite Clubs by Whites which were later imitated by


the Ghanain Merchants and Educated class.

• During Colonialism, indigenous African performance modes were


suppressed and in some cases deliberately supplanted with Western
performance modes.
THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL FORM OF
THEATRE
• The National Theatre Movement originally begun in 1955.

• It was made up of a 10-member Government Committee.

• This Committee was couched from the then Ministry of Education.

Their Manddate:
• To save the country from the imminent threat of a foreign cultural
imposition.

• To revive the dying culture of the people.

• To conscientise the people to take cultural action towards


development.
After the report of the 10 member Committee,
•An Interim Committee for the Arts Council was set up

Their Mandate:
•To formulate and carry out a practical policy for a National Theatre
Movement.

•To refashion indigenous Ghanaian traditional forms to suit modern


theatre through the creative experiments.

•To systematically promote the arts in Ghana through theatre.


• In 1958, a permanent Council was inaugurated by an Act of Parliament.
The permanent Council’s Mandate:

• "to bring into existence a theatre that will derive its vitality and
authenticity from roots firmly planted in the true traditions of the
people’’

• To see to it that traditional forms of drama constitute the basis for a


National Theatre.

• To rid the people’s mind from all forms of ‘colonial mentality’

• To help forge Ghana’s cultural identity’ and create a theatrical form of


‘truly Ghanaian flavour, drawing on oral traditions of performance.
ACHIEVEMENT
•In 1962, from the recommendation of the council, The School of Music
and Drama was established in the University of Ghana, Legon.

•Most experimental theatres begun from this institution.

Short Comings of the Council

•Theatrical performances largely concentrated in Accra

•There was no school-based drama program.

•Low output of creative materials.

•The problem of language-how to create a homogenous audience to


support the movement.
Sutherland’s Experimental Theatre Players
•In 1958, Sutherland founded the Experimental Theatre Players with
support from the Arts Council and the Rockefeller Foundation.

•Main Aim-using theatre as a way of contacting and engaging with the


greatest number of people possible and in using drama as a tool for
social education and change.

•The Experimental Theatre was located in Accra.


•In 1961, it was officially endorsed by the Government and received
support.

•It was later in that same year renamed the Ghana Drama Studio by
Government

•Joe De Graft was the first director of the Ghana Drama Studio.
Kusum Players
•It a revolutionary form of theatre which drew on both the Western
literary forms and the Ghanaian traditional forms.

•Her artistic mission to create and define a unique form of Ghanaian


theatre with Anansesem.

•Kusum was based on the popular Akan story telling session,


‘Anansesem’

•Her main aim for establishing Kusum was to experiment and also
consolidate her Anansegoro.

•It was interactive and total theatre.

•Kusum became the fore-runner of most touring theatre companies in


Ghana especially the Abibigromma-the National Theatre Residence
Company.
THE NATIONAL THEATRE COMPANY
•The National Theatre Company was established in August, 1983.

•The National Theatre Company officially replaced the erstwhile Ghana


Theatre Movement.

•It was set up as ‘a model repertory troupe to facilitate teaching,


research and experimentation into authentic Ghanaian theatre forms.

•Its mission was to ‘evolve the concept of an authentic African Theatre


which draws from both traditional and contemporary legacies.’

•It was set up to fill the void created with the ‘dying’ of Kusum Agromma
and other touring theatres.

•It was a touring theatre with a more national approach.


• The National Theatre Company has actively reach out to and engage
with as many people as possible in Ghana.

• It has redefined the identity of Ghanaian Theatre to fit the 21st


century.

• The National Theatre Company has toured to over a hundred


secondary schools in Ghana.

• It has become a vibrant voice to thousands of people across Ghana and


internationally in the area of cultural education and propagation.
POPULAR THEATRE IN GHANA

•Popular Theatre is the kind of theatre which speaks to the ordinary


people in their own indigenous language or idiom.

•It deals with issues that are relevant to the people’s everyday lives.

•It concentrates on awakening the capacity of those involved to


participate in decisions affecting their daily lives.

•It can be simply defined as the people’s theatre


THE GHANA CONCERT PARTY GENRE
•The Ghanaian Concert Party is one of the many art genres that have
emerged in this century in sub-Saharan Africa.

•It is a popular form of theatre which emerged in Ghana around the


1900s’.

•It is a Ghanaian Theatre genre that blend local and foreign elements.

•It is said to have been influenced by the American comedian Al Johnson


and Charlie Chaplin’s silent movies.

•The performances of Glass and Grant, an African American couple in


Ghana between 1924 and 1926 believed to be one of the influences.
• Ghanaian concert parties are professional groups of itinerant artists
who stage vernacular shows for the rural and urban audiences.

• The performance combines slapstick musical comedies, folk stories,


acrobatics, moral sermons, magical displays and dance-music
sessions.

• The concert party genre from its inception has always been
associated with guitar band and brass band.
Key features
•Local languages

•Improvisation

•Largely, slapstick comedy

•Commercial and itinerant, performing in found spaces


EARLY PERFORMERS
MASTER YALLEY

•Ghana's first concert actor of was Teacher Yalley, the headmaster of a


Sekondi elementary school.

•He began his career at his school's Empire Day Concerts in 1918, when
he joked, sang and danced.

•His costumes were fancy dress, wig, moustache and the make-up of an
American black-and-white minstrel.

• His shows mostly lasted for three hours and with a hired brass-band
that marched and campaigned around town, ending up outside the
theatre.
• Yalley’s performances were comedy sketches, assisted by a jazz
drummer.

• His shows were in English and the tickets expensive, consequently


his audience consisted mainly of the educated black elite
ISHMAEL “BOB” JOHNSON
•Bob Johnson also from Sekondi.

•His acting career began at shows performed at his Sekondi Methodist


school that took place after the Empire Day parades around town.

• He formed a group was called the Versatile Eight.

• These included the three; the joker, the gentleman and the lady
impersonator.

•Johnson himself played the joker, and did it so well this role has since
become known as the 'Bob' for the concert profession.

•Johnson fused together elements of the character of the imported


blackface minstrel with that of the mischievous Kwaku Ananse.
THE FORM OF GHANAIAN CONCERT PARTY

•A hybrid form described as on the side of tradition and


innovation (Bame, 1985)

•Opening Glee- Guitar band music.

•Comedy skits and jokes

•An improvised moralistic play on a


contemporary/topical issue interlaced with music/songs
TELEVISED DRAMA/THEATRE
•The drama programme was divided into drama in English and drama in
the Ghanaian languages of Akan, Ga and Ewe.

• There was Akan drama on Sundays, Ga and Ewe drama on alternate


Tuesdays, a repeat of the previous Sunday's Akan drama on Wednesdays,
and drama in English on Thursdays.
•The Thursday Drama was popularly termed as ‘Thursday Theatre’.

•Thursday Theatres mostly were skewed with political messages as the


government of the day used it as platform to project its policies.

•The time-period normally runs from about 8 to about 9; that is after the
Current Affairs discussion programme.

•The most popular of these drama was the Akan Drama.


AKAN DRAMA
•The Akan drama was synonymous throughout the seventies with one
theatre troupe: the Osofo Dadzie group.

• It was a troupe comprising about six regular male characters and


about four regular female characters.

•One of the male characters was Osofo Dadzie.

•He was always seen in clerical collar and suit; sometimes, would be
seen holding a Bible and either giving counsel to members of his
congregation or praying.
• Another very popular character in the troupe is Super O.D.It is claimed
that the initials.

• O.D. stands for Osofo Dadzie.

• According to most accounts, in the early days of the troupe, many


people thought he was Osofo Dadzie; but when the confusion was
cleared he had already become associated with the name so he was
given the name 'Super Osofo Dadzie‘ to distinguish him from his
namesake.

• He is cast as a foil to his namesake.


Theatre in Africa
• Most countries have been unable to rid themselves of their
colonial past and, consequently, their theatrical customs include
both European and African conventions.
Performance in Nigeria
• Nigeria includes more than two hundred fifty different ethnic
groups, of which the most populous are the Hausa, Yoruba, Ibo,
and Fulani.
• One of the major Yoruba festivals was the egungen, in which
sacrifices were offered and petitions for blessing and prosperity
were addressed to the dead.
Performance in Nigeria
• The most popular contemporary theatrical form in Nigeria is Yoruba
opera (now usually called Yoruba Travelling Theatre).
• It was developed primarily by Hubert Ogunde, who in 1946
established a professional company with which he toured thereafter.

Hubert Ogunde
Performance in Nigeria
• English-language plays also became popular from around 1900,
• and drama was intoduced into schools founded by the English
colonial government or by religious organizations that were
seeking to convert Nigerians to Christianity.
Performance in Nigeria
• But the dominant playwright
has been Wole Soyinka
(1934-), especially since 1986,
when he won the Noble Prize
for Literature, the first African
to be so honored.
• That has not kept him from
being punished by a
government that has
imprisoned him and
threatened him with death for
his opposition to certain
government policies.
The Strong Breed
• The staging conventions used in The Strong Breed are much the
same as those found in European and American theatres.
• The difference from European and American drama lies primarily
in the subject matter and its treatment, which strongly reflects
the egungen traditions, but placed in a modern context.
The Strong Breed
• In The Strong Breed, the dramatic action focuses on a ritual that can
be traced all the way back to the Greeks –
• the selection and expulsion of a scapegoat who will take all the
problems of the village on himself and carry them away.
The Strong Breed
• It is never made clear why Summa, who seems to be in love with
Eman, does not tell him of the difference in customs here,
• not even when a girl dragging an effigy appears and lures him into
the bush, where he can be captured and prepared for the ritual.
Theatre Elsewhere in Africa
• The best-known South African playwright is Athol Fugard, whose
plays have been produced throughout the world and have been
especially popular in the US.
• His Master Harold and the Boys (1982) is grounded in apartheid.
Epilogue
• The theatre is always in flux. It seems likely that the versions with
which we are now familiar will change as conditions alter.
• Changes are not always welcome, but they are necessary, because
theatre can remain vital only by reflecting the dynamics of the
culture within which it exists.

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