This book explores the themes of colonial encounters and postcolonial contests over identity, power and culture through the prism of theatre. The struggles it describes unfolded in two cultural settings separated by geography, but bound by history in a common web of colonial relations spun by the imperatives of European modernity. In post-imperial England, as in its former colony Nigeria, the colonial experience not only hybridized the process of national self-definition, but also provided dramatists with the language, imagery and frame of reference to narrate the dynamics of internal wars over culture and national destiny happening within
their own societies. The author examines the works of prominent twentieth-cewntury Nigerian and English dramatists such
as Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, Davd Edgar and Caryl Churchill to argue that dramaturgies of resistance in the contexts
of both Nigerian as well as its imperial inventor England, shared a common allegiance to what he describes as postcolonial desires. That is, the aspiration to overcome the legacies of colonialism by imagining alternative universes anchored
in democratic cultural pluralism. The plays and their histories serve as filters through which Ampka illustrates the operation of what he calls 'overlapping modernities' and
reconfigures the notions of power and representation, citizenship and subjectivity, colonial and anticolonial nationalisms and postcoloniality. The dramatic works studied in this book embodied a version of postcolonial aspirations that the
author conceptualises as transcending temporal locations to
encompass varied moments of consciousness for progressive change, whether they happened during the hey day of English imperialism in early twentieth-century Nigeria, or in response to the exclusionary politics of the Conservative Party in Thatcherite England. Theatre and Postcolonial Desires will be essential reading for students and researchers in the areas of drama, postcolonial and cultural studies.
By:
Awam Amkpa
Foreword by:
Ngugi wa Thiongo
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Volume: No.1
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 521g
ISBN: 9780415312875
ISBN 10: 0415312876
Series: Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies
Pages: 220
Publication Date: 16 October 2003
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: Colonial Modernity, Postcolonial Desires and a Cultural Practice Nigeria 1. Wole Soyinka: Theatre, Mythology and Political Activism 2. Femi Osofisan: Theatre, Nation and the Revolutionary Ideal 3. Tess Onwueme: Theatre, Gender and Power 4. Yoruba Travelling Theatres: Popular Theatre and Searches for Postcolonial Subjectivity 5. Theatre, Democracy and Community Development: Ahmadu Bello University and the Nigerian Popular Theatre Alliance England 6. John Arden: Dramatizing the Colonial Nation 7. David Edgar: Theatre and Decolonizing Identities 8. Caryl Churchill: Decolonizing Gender and Class 9. Monstrosities, Deviants and Darkies: Monstrous Regiment, Gay Sweatshop and Black Theatres in England Conclusion Notes
Awam Ampka is currently Associate Professor of Drama at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. He trained in Nigeria under Wole Soyinka and completed a PhD in Drama at the University of Bristol. He is the author of critical essays, plays (Not in my Season of Songs; Ajasco), director of film documentaries (Winds Against Our Souls; It's All About Downtown; National Images/Transnational Desires) and the feature film Wazabia.
