"The choice of A Dance of the Forests for performance in commemoration of the writer’s 80th birthday anniversary has been determined not just by its ‘big name’, being a play that ‘evokes terror’ on the part of readers, literary critics, theatre producers and entertainers as well as theatre directors, neither has it been motivated by the zeal to perform what has been ‘critically pronounced unperformable".
Prelude (or Pre-production Note)
Performing Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests: A Rite of Beatification
[Dear reader, listener, potential audience, patrons, enthusiasts, fellow celebrants, etc. etc., the words that follow are merely brief notes towards conceptual clarifications in view of our planned performance. Words set out here must not be taken as final. They should, at best, be read and understood within the context of a progressive aesthetic development of the performance of Wole Soyinka’s drama]
Rationale:
The choice of A Dance of the Forests for performance in commemoration of the writer’s 80th birthday anniversary has been determined not just by its ‘big name’, being a play that ‘evokes terror’ on the part of readers, literary critics, theatre producers and entertainers as well as theatre directors, neither has it been motivated by the zeal to perform what has been ‘critically pronounced unperformable’. That Wole Soyinka’s name and style of writing confer a sort of horrific feeling that obviously masks the understanding of an ‘impatient’ explorer into his mind through his world of letters is a familiar tale and as such an excuse for perceptive escapism, therefore, self-indulgence in intellectual indolence. So, to say that that critical proscription, which has circumscribed the play for years, perhaps since 1960 when it was written, directed and performed by Soyinka himself, in spite of its denial by the establishment from the stage, needs serious reversal through demonstrative evidence, is an obvious foundation. Related to this is our comprehension of this engagement that we are embarking upon as an acceptance of a long-awaited (or a long-avoided?) challenge. This serves for us as a deeper cause rather than the prestige which a production of the play is likely to confer.
However, further reasons, even more serious considerations, are apparent:
(i) A Dance of the Forests occupies a BIG BROTHER position in the pantheon of Wole Soyinka’s creative works, especially those of the dramatic genre, for this is just the right time to establish the fact – with all emphasis and authority - that each of the creative works in Soyinka’s oeuvre has attained the iconic status, over the years, of an oracle through which seekers of truth could divine the reality of our humanity for ages and ages to come.
(ii) The second is the sheer pleasure, which the play promises an enquirer through the imagery embedded in its title and, which it eventually confers on the reader when fully understood. Therefore, the clarity, profundity and sophistication of vision that informs its writing as well as the inherent elegance which its performance will endow should not be denied those who seek true art.
(iii) The history of Nigeria’s postcolonial theatre, and indeed Soyinka’s biographical chart and odyssey in the ‘forest’ of world literature, informs me that the play, A Dance of the Forests, was written and entered for a dramatic writing contest instituted in commemoration of Nigeria’s independence in 1960. Though it emerged the winning play, it was denied official performance during the celebrations. Why? The fear of, and hatred for, the truth, always an abiding fear that has led the world to continue to grope, even in this century, in the dark recesses of hypocrisy, lies, self-deception and self-denial. The same fear of, and hatred for, the truth which has brought our dear country, Nigeria, to its present knees at the court of the ultimate evil personified in reckless governance. If A Dance of the Forests, then, was written in 1960, that was when Wole Soyinka was barely twenty-six (26) years of age. I am eager, therefore, to lead a would-be audience on an expedition into the skull of Soyinka at 26 – to explore his thinking patterns, perception of humanity, understanding of society, projection of crisis and conflict as well as conceptualization of resolution. At age 26. This, then, would be an exercise in amateur psychoanalysis.
(iv) The play, A Dance of the Forests, came in appropriately as the grand aesthetic and philosophical statement announcing the arrival of Wole Soyinka on the global stage as a playwright that must not be ignored. It arrived at an auspicious moment to confirm the genius of Soyinka who had already sent waves home from the Diaspora in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s through two mature plays: The Lion and the Jewel and The Swamp Dwellers. Its writing actually completed a dramatic triad of his early creativity. It must also be noted that a rough portion of the play, titled “The House of Banigeji”, had actually been probably workshopped at the Royal Court Theatre, London, around 1958/59. It then served as a solid receptacle for the younger ones such as The Trials of Brother Jero, Jero’s Metamorphosis, Camwood on the Leaves, The Road, Kongi’s Harvest and Death and the King’s Horseman.
(v) In the area of relevance, the strength of the play as an archaeology of history, a revision of the present and a prediction of the future has been authoritatively established by numerous critics of, and commentators on, Soyinka’s works notable among whom are Eldred Durosimi-Jones, Martin Banham, James Gibbs and, of course, Biodun Jeyifo. But one key and lucid treasure in the drama that has continued to escape the critical gaze of its reviewers are two particular dimensions of its rituality. The first is the apparent foundational structure which Soyinka laid for what has been understood today as the phenomenon of ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ through the ‘Court of Aroni’. So, futuristically, Soyinka had, as far back as 1960 when he was barely 26, foresaw a time when the oceans of iniquity of humanity will overflow their banks to the extent that mankind will seek resolution of their self-inflicted crisis in the strategy of ‘commissioning truth and reconciliation panels’. The structure of the entire drama of A Dance of the Forests revolves around the ‘court of truth, recompense, equity, justice and reconciliation’ which the character, Aroni, the Lame One, stage managed, aided by Eshuoro through his various transformations and disguises as the Questioner and as The Figure-in-Red, under the directorship of Forest Head. Does this not remind us of the post-Apartheid South Africa’s famous Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)? Does this not bring to mind the fact that a similar truth and reconciliation action was found significant in the resolution of conflict in the post-genocide phase of Rwanda? What about our own very familiar post-military dictatorship conflict resolution contraption christened the National Human Rights Violations Commission (NHRVC), popularly known as ‘Oputa Panel’? The point being made here is that in Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests, the structure had been constructed for all these ‘new’ human society reconstruction and re-engineering strategies that have been globally applied in crisis-ridden regions of the world. So, who says that art does not stock in its womb solutions to the eternal problems of man? Only if humanity, especially, in Nigeria, could just pause for a moment, to think and be wise! We all know what became of the ‘Oputa Panel – a mere jamboree just like all the others in Nigeria before it, including the on-going national conference (Kutigi Confab?). The report was never found useful! Therefore, as a theatre director, I will, through this performance, be instituting the real ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ where the ultimate parameter for such acts – “truth is the only condition for justice”, and put in the vintage Soyinkaresque words – “justice is the only condition for humanity” – will be affirmed. So, an audience must be ready to submit him/herself to this pre-condition. Therefore, what is happening at the moment in Abuja as ‘National Conference’ is a mere mockery of the original template provided by Soyinka in the institution of the ‘Gathering of the Tribes’, which A the Dance of the Forests had futuristically prescribed.
(vi) The stone that was rejected by builders, they say, later emerges as the head of the corner. This being one of the moments when this play WILL be most relevant to the Nigerian polity, its targeted and, at the same time, coincidental production at this critical period, then, WILL manifest as an act of commissioning of the real truth of our existence. The audience, therefore, will be expected to submit him/herself to that imperious demand. That is the mandate that the production has accorded itself. The space of its performance will not only be beatified as a sacred space for the utterance, investigation and resolution of truth – a ‘Freedom Space’ sort of – the play itself WILL enjoy the beatification that the Nigerian authorities initially denied it as an official play, which it was actually meant to be, for the independence celebrations in 1960.
(vii) And, of course, how else can a man who has fought all his life for the truth, and who has demonstrated an unassailable conviction in reconciling the human race that has always been in dispute with itself, be revered? This occasion of the production of the play to celebrate his approach of the threshold of the sacred realm of octogenarians – the real space of patriarchs – is our own convincing way, then, of beatifying Wole Soyinka and affirming his life and works as the true icon of TRUTH and the necessity for JUSTICE.
Briefly on the Directorial Concept:
In traditional African societies, there have always been spaces of revelation of truth and reconciliation of persons and forces in conflict. This space is what Soyinka has artistically explored in the play, A Dance of the Forests. That space is what I have identified as a sacred ground for the enactment of this ritual of revelation which constitutes the drama. The entire community is involved in this ritual – humans, dead, living and unborn; spirits, deities, animals, the vegetation. Such is the completeness of the African idea of community. That space of unfolding of facts of existence and celebration of the eternal interaction between all these facets of existence is the Igbo Igbale. This is the space that has been found as the most unique location that could accommodate this giant rite of the ‘Gathering of the Tribes’ dramatized in Soyinka’s play.
The approach to the play's direction, therefore, shall be constructed around the iconic space of ‘Igbale'. A Dance of the Forests is, actually, an ‘Igbale piece’, and as such would be presented within a natural grove environment. The reason, of course, owes to its nature as an act based on the return of the ancestors. This evokes a clear picture of the preparation and emergence of 'egungun', in Yoruba ritual of ancestral veneration, in and from 'Igbo Igbale'. It also invokes the idea of the African traditional festivals unfolding in their most natural settings. This ultimately suitable space of sacred activity, which will accord an inquisitive theatre director like myself, and a technically-stubborn theatre designer like Teju Kareem, the privilege to give it the deserved site specific treatment - a physically challenging and an environmentally symbolic interpretation that should remain memorable for long is what Professor Wole Soyinka has magnanimously granted us somewhere on his own portion of the earth in the wide universe. “Leave a room”, then, “for the Dead to dance”.
‘Tunde Awosanmi
(Artistic Director).
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