Here we have reproduced an article that Comfort wrote for alt.theatre magazine . The article was published in 1996 but the fact remains that many minority arts groups are still facing the same issues today. Please take a read and tell us what you think.
Reflections on a Transplanted African Theatre
By Comfort Adesuwa Ero
My childhood was spent in a village near Benin City, Nigeria. I am told that at the age of three, I regularly amazed my father by retreating to a quiet corner to sing, dance and dramatize commonly told folktales. Apparently, I also made up new stories as well. This prompted my father to send me to the village school when I was five. While it was very unpopular to send girls to school at that time, my father was the village’s head chief and not easily deterred.
St Matthew’s was an Anglican missionary school that also employed a few African teachers. As a consequence, our school plays focused on historical and cultural drama and folktales. When I was nine years old, I was sent to the big city of Ibadan to continue my education. Here, under the tutelage of Catholic nuns, students performed European poetry, Shakespearean plays, and Opera. Now, as an adult theatre artist living in Canada, I reflect on the ways in which the diverse nature and quality of these experiences have influenced my vision for a transplanted African theatre.
Before the arrival of missionaries in Africa and the advent of colonialism, itinerant actors would go from place to place to entertain people in village arenas or market places. Plays were based on popular folktales, or historical and cultural themes with which the villagers could easily identify. Actors were content with the little money given by their obviously pleased on-lookers. It was fun and very popular way of maintaining community harmony and educating the people about political issues or matters affecting their health and social well-being
With the missionaries came Shakespearean plays and literary drama. To my mind this was the beginning ofa profound erosion / cross-road in the African theatre. Community theatre was discouraged and school children were forced to act, speak and dress in the Elizabethan fashion to dramatize European poetry. While this produced a growing number of Western-educated elite, it also greatly alienated the peoples of rural communities. African community theatre went into a kind of limbo.
In the early sixties, just after independence, there was an attempt to re-awaken the community theatre. However, aspiring artists faced many challenges. There was a general belief that there was no future and no good job awaiting African theatre artists. Many believed that theatre arts were not suitable for the educated, and students of theatre quickly switched over to read languages and literature because these would readily fetch them jobs after graduation. With little education or resources, communit theatre artists were generally self-trained while on the job. The trend was for the director of a troupe to marry all his female actors! Over a period of time a director could build a large cast made up mainly of his wives and children. This reduced costs, and more importantly, made it possible to build and sustain trust, stability, and allegiance within the troupe.
At first, these artists attempted to integrate the African popular theatre into the imported theatre by performing on stages in town halls and similar venues. This was a foreign idea to the people, and did not meet with much success. Next artists tried radio and the newly imported media of television. While this fascinated the general public, the new political class had no tolerance for criticism. This was a post-independence era. The people were afraid of this new, and powerful class. When there was so much injustice and violence as a result of their antics, the only way the theatre practitioners were able to get back at them was to resort to the traditional way of using popular theatre. They would act, sing, dance, drum and use proverbs and metaphors to address the politicians. This type of political criticism was and still is a part of the African community theatre traditions. When artists used metaphors, idioms, or proverbs in their plays and songs to criticize the government, the politicians feared popular uprisings. They quickly hounded these artists out of existence –actors were arrested or jailed, and TV and radio shows were cancelled.
In the mid sixties, one of the great directors of community theatre, Hubert Ogunde created a play and a song to criticize the rigging of elections. The song was titled Yoruba Ronu, meaning “My people, let’s reflect on our lives.” It rapidly became the most popular song in the Western Region of Nigeria, and it soon brought the corrupt government to its knees. Since it is not easy to accuse the one who uses metaphors, idioms or proverbs to criticize, Ogunde was able to escape some persecutions and court litigations. He was banned from touring some states in the Federation. His music was banned from the radio and t.v. but it could not be banned from people’s homes. He remained the people’s hero until he died in the early 90s.
The era of military rulers from 1966 to early 1999 wreaked further havoc on actors, artists and writers. Theatre and literary works were heavily censored. Artists who were lucky enough to escape with their lives either fled abroad where they could continue with their literary works without fear, or stopped writing and producing plays entirely. During almost three decades of dictatorial regime in Nigeria, literary works and drama essentially disappeared. This suppression of creativity was repeated across the African continent wherever there were wars and dictatorial regimes.
In spite of these challenges however, and because the regimes focused mainly on tertiary institutions and the general public, Nigerian elementary and high schools were able to develop fertile ground for popular drama. I was among the teachers who popularised drama not only in teaching but also on the stage in high schools in Nigeria. It gave voice to the teachers and students who were pushed way down the social ladder.
These days, while there is still a lack of playwrights and functioning arts theatres in many parts of Africa, including Nigeria, the root causes of the problems facing popular theatre have shifted. Governments would rather build stadiums than pay attention to the Arts, and corrupt officials are able to divert financial resources designated for the repair of theatres. Violence continues, and there has been a huge influx of home videos in Nigeria . Videos reduce the demand for live theatre as people can elect to watch videos in the safety and comfort of their homes, rather than risk potential violence at live performances.
Relocating to British Columbia, Canada,, I worked as an actor and facilitator with PUENTE–a Victoria-based theatre specialising in the immigrant experience. PUENTE’s artistic director, Lina de Guevara, encouraged me to highlight differences between theatre practices in Canada and my home country, and to consider my Nigerian traditional experience as an enrichment of Canadian theatre. In 1997, Lina and PUENTE’s vision inspired me to create Ebonie Academy of Performing Arts. It was a forum for training and showcasing African culture through drama, dance and storytelling by African immigrants. In June, 2003, Ebonie Academy became Zibota African Moonlight Theatre. This in turn was incorporated in March 2004 and re-named African Stages Association of BC
Perhaps it is to be expected that the transplanted artist will not take root, grow and bloom immediately after relocation. Like most artists in Canada, they will struggle to earn a decent living. In addition, they will face the problems of settlement in a new culture – language, acceptance, integration and adaptation. Funding poses particular challenges for the immigrant artist. While government and private agencies in Canada are increasingly sensitized to diversity in the arts, the African immigrant community is young and struggling, and there are no big businesses within the African community able to sponsor companies such as ours. Most immigrant artists are not aware of government grants and when they are, they are not familiar with the application process. Our limited ability to pay actors and production costs often results in a lack of commitment from artists and technicians who must support themselves elsewhere. We struggle to find enough people who understand the African culture to perform in our shows. While I believe it is advantageous to have mixed cultures on stage, there are roles that only someone who has lived an African life can internalise and play. On the other hand, transplanted African artists often experience difficulty in adapting to Canadian cultural approaches. African art and theatre deals with mainly the real. Plays are often very wordy and down to earth. In Canada, much theatre dwells more on the surreal and the abstract. Figures of speech differ, and for most Africans, English is not their first language. The bulk of African writers write in English, which in most cases becomes “Africanised.”
Yet, in spite of these challenges, we continue to survive in Canada by working hard, depending on volunteers, and getting what little bit of help we can from funders and the young African community. Our Canadian experience and training may come from affiliation with an existing artist or theatre director who will serve as a mentor, or the immigrant artist may elect to go back to school to study different ways of doing things. It is my opinion, however, that new immigrant artists should be cautioned about hybridising or Canadianising his or her art too soon—their best work will come from portrayals of the culture they grew in. As an African writer and theatre practitioner living in Canada, I seek to carve a niche for a transplanted African theatre, and I encourage other immigrant artists to do the same—and to aim at the sky because it is the limit.
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