Death and the King’s Horseman Three weeks earlier, before the opening scenes of the events that

took
place in the play, the king of Oyo had died and it is customary that the king’s horseman (Elesin Oba)
must voluntarily commit suicide in order to accompany the late king to the land of the ancestors. It is on
the eve that Elesin Oba is to commit suicide, that Elesin, who cannot be denied anything he requires to
render his “passage” into the great beyond free of regret, that he desires a new bride.96 Kenneth
Efakponana ENI

The colonial district officer, Mr. Pilkings, considering that the English Prince of Wales would be visiting
the district and the death of a prominent chief during the period would mar his career as a district
officer, decides to interrupt the proceedings of the ritual, Olunde, Elesin Oba’s son who Mr. Pilkings had
earlier helped to escape to England to study medicine, when he learnt of the Oba’s death returns home
to bury his father; when confronted with his father’s failure to die in the appropriate manner, decides to
take his father’s place. A careful reading of the play shows Soyinka strong sense of history. In the play,
some

fourteen years after the birth of the Nigerian nation, Soyinka goes back in time to events that happened
in the colonial period to portray the forces at work in 1946 as the same forces at work in 1974. The
inter-relatedness of colonialism to the history of Nigeria is well mirrored in the play by the presence of
Mr. Pilkings and wife, and later H.R.H. the visiting Prince of Wales and the Resident.

The play was written while Soynka was at Churchill College, Cambridge. The storyline is

taken from an actual historical event which took place in Oyo in 1945. However Nigerian the events
dramatised in the play may be, Soyinka avails himself of his wide travels and learning to portray the
Nigerian factor in the play in a universal perspective. One would be doing great injustice to the play by
seeing it simply as a historical play about the Nigerian situation. The universality of its metaphysical
depth is lost when viewed as such. An understanding of the Yoruba cosmology upon which the play is
built is necessary to understanding of the disruptive effects of Elesin Oba’s lack of will to die. According
to Bowman (1983) “The essence of this cosmology as he explains it is in direct contradiction to Christian
and European emphasis on salvation” (82). Elesin Oba is conceived in the tradition of the great
promethean of European tragedy; the cause of the tragedy is his one weakness: the Aristotelian tragic
flaw. Thus, Elesin is not only cast in a cultural light but also as a universal being. The quality that imbues
Elesin Oba’s personality can be found in every culture. Like the Sophoclean King Oedipus, Elesin’s sexual
prowess, which up till now has been a virtue, turns to be his undoing. Iyaloja angrily rebukes Elesi

Opera Wonyosi had its debut performance on the 16th of December 1977 at the occasion of University
of Ife’s convocation ceremony (Now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife). The100

Kenneth Efakponana ENI

play which is a transposition of two European plays: Bertolt Brecht’s Die dreigroshenoper (The

Three Penny Opera, 1928) which in turn is an adaption of Beggars Opera (1728) by John Gay.
The three plays are satire on different levels. While Opera Wonyosi is a satire on the Nigerian

society of the late 1970’s oil boom generation and it lacks the metaphysical depth of Soyinka’s

other plays like The Road (1965) and Death and the King’s Horseman (1975); Brecht’s The

Three Penny opera is a satire aimed at the bourgeois and the capitalist society of his day. It

parodies the bourgeois morality and hypocrisy of a materialistic society. Gay’s Beggar’s Opera

on the other hand, also attacks the Italian grand operas of the 1720’s and the bourgeois societies

that patronises these operas.

Soyinka’s The Bachae of Euripides and Opera Wonyosi have been commented upon by

drama critics and scholars as an adaptation and it is a generally agreed conception that Soyinka

succeeded in Africanising these plays to the extent that he gave them a deeper dimension and

complexity, radically transforming these plays. However, there is still the question of how

successful Soyinka’s transformation has been.

In some places, Soyinka’s adaptation of the Three Penny Opera follows Brecht’s play

slavishly. He has not been able to transform Brecht’s play totally as Brecht was able to trans-

form Gay’s Beggars Opera. Lindfors (1981) comment on the work when he states that “Soyinka

seems content to pour local palm-wine into European receptacles rather than devise new

containers for home-brewed spirits” becomes relevant (23). With Opera Wonyosi, Soyinka

describes in vivid terms rustic post-civil war oil boom and Naira-mania in Nigeria and in more

general terms, Soyinka’s summation of happenings in Africa.

The play was written in 1977 and set in the Central African Empire of Banqui. Emperor

Boky in the play is a satiric representation of Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who, after serving in the

French army organised his country’s army and became the Prime Minister of the Central

African Republic. He declared himself life president in 1972 and a few years latter was crowned

Emperor in an extravagant ceremony. Adeniran (1994) in The politics of Wole Soyinka describes

the event thus:

was made of gilt bronze. More than 2,000 guests were invited from abroad

to witness the vainglory of an African buffoon unequalled in depth of

idiocy, vulgarity and monstrosity – a disastrous phenomenon! (71).

In Wonyosi, the new names introduced do not necessarily signal a change in characterisation.

For example, Jonathan Anikura possesses the same characteristics as Jonathan Peachum and his

wife De Madam, plays the same part as Mrs Cilia Peachum in Gay and Brecht’s. The new

characters introduced by Wole Soyinka are: a military man, Colonel Moses; the University

Academic Professor, Bamgbapo; a lawyer, Alatako; a media man; and a Dee-Jay who doubles

as a master of ceremony (M. C.). These are mere representatives of various professions. The M.

C. usurps the position of the street singer in The Three Penny Opera. The inflated character of

Bokassa easily recognisable as Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic.

His imperial coronation serves the same purpose for the Queen’s in Brecht’s plot. Iji (1991) is

of the view that “Like Brecht’s Macheat, Soyinka’s Macheat is however a Faustian figure who

is an armed bandit, but squeamish of bloodshed” (170). The character structure within the play

remains the same.

The plotting of Wonyosi is a carryover of Brecht’s plot. The materials are organised

virtually into the same organisational pattern and sequence of The Three Penny Opera.

Soyinka’s play like his predecessor’s found the powerful, the low, the rich and the poor quilty of

corruption. All three plays end happily.

Apart from the mere fact that the two playwrights (Brecht and Soyinka) use music toInfluences and
Traditions: Wole Soyinka and the Nigerian Theatre

101

achieve alienation effect in the two plays, there is something metaphorical about the title of the

plays as operas. This might be that the society in each of the playwrights setting is unconsci-

ously dancing to some sort of unheard or undeciphered rhythm. Lindfors (1981) again comments
on Soyinka’s use of music in The Begging Question in Wole Soyinka’s Opera Wonyosi thus:

The songs Wole Soyinka used in Opera Wonyosi came from a variety of

sources, hardly any of which were African. He grafted new words into

well-known Euro-American tunes, much as Gay has done with English

airs in The Beggars Opera. For instance, he borrowed Curt Weill’s

music for “Pirate Jenny” in a later scene. Similarly, the English ballad

“Who Killed Cock Robin?” Other melodies recognisable from Soyinka’s

lyrics include such popular favourites as “The Saint Louis Blues” and

Donald Swart’s “At the Drop of the Hat” and at least one Nigerian

“Highlife” tune but there was no evidence that any traditional African

song or indigenous musical instrument were utilised. Musically, Opera

Wonyosi was an eclectic medley (25).

Like Brecht, Soyinka’s dramatic pre-occupation in the play is that man, like the world in

which he finds himself is in a constant process of becoming rather than doomed to stasis or

unchanging and unchangeable destinies. Both dramatists do not see Macheath’s crimes as worse

that those crimes committed by the bourgeois and the highly placed government functionaries.

Soyinka, like Brecht, deliberately refused to align with a clear cut Marxist or capitalist philoso-

phy, but rather, the two plays portrayed man’s filthy approach to survive in a filthy environ-

ment. Hence at the end of the play, the audience find it difficult to pitch camp with any of the

philosophies or ideologies and identify with any of the characters in the plays. Both plays end in

quandary as to the fate of the society whose criminals are given the go-ahead to operate.

For the setting of the play, Soyinka searched for an equivalent environment with Brecht’s

Soho and Whitechapel setting and he found it in the Nigerian quarters of the Central African

Republic in Banqui. Though the setting is Nigerian, the whole spectrum of issues and the

orientation given to these issues makes the play have a universal dimension, thus further moving
it towards Europe and America more than Africa. The setting shows Soyinka’s pre-occupation

with universal issues rather than concentrating on Nigeria or Africa. Lindfors (1981) also states

of that “Opera Wonyosi is a very topical Nigerian satire, but it gains much of its thrust and

momentum by delivering its message in a dispensable, racy vehicle of foreign manufacture.

Indeed, at times Soyinka looks more like a hitch-hiker than a trailblazer” (23). Thus aesthetically

speaking, the aesthetics of Wonyosi’s theatre is European.

In the play, Soyinka constantly laments about poor human conditions brought about by

corruption and greed. This lament on poor human condition Achebe (1997) sees as a carryover

of the sickness that is plaguing Europe. He states categorically that:

I am talking about the human condition syndrome; Presumably European

art and literature have good reason for going into the phase of despair.

But ours does not. The worse we can afford is disappointment (25).

Soyinka paints the picture of poor human conditions in Wonyosi almost to the point of

despair. There is nothing anybody in the play could do to elevate the human condition since

everybody is corrupt and perverse, except maybe Jenny, who expects nemesis one day; but

nemesis from whom and for whom? Sure enough Nigeria is corrupt, but which country is not?

Every country has its brand of corruption. Soyinka super-imposes foreign metaphors of

corruption on the corruption of the Nigerian society, he extended it to the whole continent of

black Africa and in a larger sense the entire human race in general, as the conditions he satirises102

Kenneth Efakponana ENI

are common to all nations although in varied degrees. He says of humanity in general in the play

that “to be bribeable you’ve got to be imaginative. That’s why the cleverest men are the most

corruptible” (52). He further commented on the poor human condition through Anikura:

Remember, it’s not everyday

The emperor’s Courtier timely arrives repairing

And watch certain well-tuned voices that Clamour loudest; “Justice for

all” (82).

These comments on the poor human conditions are similar to those of Gay and Brecht. The

influence of Christianity on Soyinka, however subtle, could be noticed in his characterisation of

Prophet Jerubabel (which if one would dare to suggest is reminiscent and a carryover of the

character of Prophet Jeroboam in The Trials of Brother Jero). Jerubabel which is the name

given to Gideon after his destruction of the alter of Baal in Judges 6:32; unlike the Biblical

Gideon who was a righteous man that delivered men from the hands of oppression, Soyinka’s

Jerubabel erects alters (Altars of Baal) and he is hypocritical and corrupt. Thus Jerubabel

epitomizes the religious hacks which Nigeria and indeed the rest of the world is full of. A theme

he has earlier explored in The trial of Brother Jero.

In “the song of Jenny” Soyinka makes allusion to Biblical experience:

Sodom and Gomorrah

Will seem quite paradisiacal

When this whorehouse comes to trial

On that soon-to-be tomorrow (46).

The Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah was a whorehouse. In making this allusion, Soyinka

likens what will befall Nigeria (the world) on the judgement day to the fire and brimstones

which was mentioned in the account of the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah on

its judgement day and hence symbolic of God’s anger. Another allusion Soyinka makes in the

play is his reference to Alexender Pope in the “song of the Ruling Passion”.

Structurally, the play is built on the same structural pattern as Gay’s and Brecht’s with

music interposed within the movements where the action stops, and the actors take the songs

before going back to the action. This is more of Brecht’s style than of Soyinka’s originality. The
structure of the play heightens the alienation effect. In Soyinka’s adaptation, it shocks the

audience to a realisation of a sense of decaying moral values and materialistic tendencies of the

class satirised in the play.

Thus, with Wonyosi, Soyinka has successfully posited that, though man, generally is evil,

the society in which he finds himself makes him more vicious. Man is thus torn between the

opposing forces of pessimism and optimism. The latter suggests the elimination of certain social

vices for the betterment of the society, while the former suggest that man can only survive

“decently” by a resourceful use of his bestial nature – a position shared by Peachum/Anikura

and Macheath in the play.

Conclusion

Highly influenced by foreign factors which could be traced to his learning and travels in Europe

and America, Soyinka delves into Aristotelian dialectics and aesthetics, metaphysical and

psychological exploration of the human conditions. Soyinka searches for unified cosmic order

in which there is harmony between the creatures and the cosmic forces. This is the main thrust

of his critical essays which he dramatises in his plays.

Soyinka’s theatre is thus mytho-ritual, featuring a synthesis of Western dramatic forms withInfluences
and Traditions: Wole Soyinka and the Nigerian Theatre 103

the myth of his Yoruba heritage. The realistic movement and other ideological movement in Europe and
America have also extended their toll of influence upon him. A display of Western theatrical flair which
he has gained through his contacts with the West is also evident in his works. As an adaptation of an
original work, Soyinka has not succeeded in transforming Opera

Wonyosi to be a truly Nigerian play much as Brecht was able to transform Gay’s Beggars Opera. The
cyclical influence of adaptations and reworking of preceding literary works have also been borrowed
from Europe and America by the Nigerian literary artist. In the case of Opera Wonyosi, Soyinka’s attempt
at Nigerianising a European play has not been totally successful. Soyinka’s attempt exemplifies the debt
of the Nigerian stage to the Euro-American literary theatre traditions.

His Plays and those of his contemporaries address social, cultural and political issues in Nigeria. These
kinds of play became popular with students and literate people all over the country.
The leading Literary Drama icon of this period is the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, who early in his
career established a Theatre Company known as "The 1960 Masks". He produced and published many
plays, including The Lion and the Jewel (1959), The Trials of Brother Jero, A Dance of the Forests (1960),
Kongi's Harvest (1964), Madmen and Specialists (1970), Death and the King's Horseman (1975), A Play of
Giants (1984), The Road and The Strong Breed. Thematically, Soyinka has two types of plays, namely
Political Plays and Social/Metaphysical plays. In his Political Plays, he castigates the primitive nature of
governance in contemporary Africa, while his Social/Metaphysical plays explore issues such as the
nature of sacrifices, the mysterious supernatural forces, which control the universe, passing from life to
death, prejudices, religious hypocrisy and conflicts. Obafemi (2001) observes: Soyinka is preoccupied in
his creative work, especially his plays, with the socio-political and spiritual state of Africa. He sees
African society in a state of transition, both on the material and the spiritual levels. He approaches this
concern with the inextricable sociospiritual search for liberation through the medium of ritual.