Osofisan's African Antigone 
EMORY 
An African 
Antigone 
Ch :<>hcr '*.'\ through 29 
It was not the first honour abroad. 
Femi Osofisan, professor of 
Theatre Arts at the University of 
Ibadan, Nigeria's 'poet of the votile 
verse' now in residence at Emory 
University, a centre of professional 
theatre activities in Atlanta, Georgia, 
had last October a series of performances 
of a dramatic adaptation co-sponsored 
by Emory's Institute of African Studies. 
After an impressive showing in the 1992 
National Black Arts Festival during 
which his company played to 'sold-out 
houses,' he was to re-enact the same 
feat, for no less than one week, at Theatre 
Emory where he adapted and directed a 
workshop production of Tegonni, an 
African Antigone. 
For the play, he presented a Yoruba 
village as a microcosm of the African 
world where men remain because of 
other men. It was a world where you 
were distraught by the death and edified 
by the progress of the other fellow. A 
world where the words of elders prevailed 
and offered direction and guidance to 
the young and upcoming generations. 
This atmosphere of 19th century 
Yorubaland provided the setting for this 
classical drama woven around apolitical 
power tussle and 
civil dissent. A 
succinct narration 
of the script runs 
thus: 'On the 
morning of her 
marriage to a 
British officer, 
Princess Tegonni 
is stopped in her 
bridal procession 
by soldiers 
guarding a corpse. 
It is Tegonni's 
brother who, since 
he fought on the 
-^*&W* losing side in a 
recent civil war, is 
to be denied 
traditional rites of burial at the order of 
the colonial governor. Tegonni's 
consequent struggle between her loyalty 
to her brother and her love for her fiance 
is intensified by the clash of cultures and 
the struggle for power that surrounds 
her.' 
As customary with the poet and 
performer who has produced close to 
fifty plays for the stage, television and 
radio, this particular drama, Tegonni, 
went beyond the mundane or cosmetic. 
It got fundamentally to the very roots of 
race relations and personal courage in 
their diverse manifestations, albeit in a 
world full of proclivities and prejudice. 
And like the blacksmith in his forge, he 
continually struck the conscience of 
humanity, a fraction of which was in the 
audience, provoking their thoughts and 
presenting a viewpoint of universal 
brotherhood based on equity and 
mutuality. 
The sociological basis of the play was 
pungent and cogent. For 'life in our 
country,' the playwright said, 'is a series 
of episodes in a grandiose melodrama.... 
Everything is acted out to the screaming 
pitch of hysteria.' Above all other 
considerations therefore, his concern for 
AKIN TAIWO 
this play was 'to look at the problems of 
political freedom against the background 
of the present turmoil in Nigeria where 
various military governments have been 
bent for decades now on thwarting the 
people's desire for democracy, 
happiness and good government.' 
The play, replete with traditional Yoruba 
music and dance, is a celebration of 
African creativity characteristic of 
Osofisan's productions. 
In addition to this production, was a 
forum in the Munroe Theatre auditorium 
in which Osofisan participated. Other 
eminent academics on the roll included 
Biodun Jeyifo, formerly of the Obafemi 
Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, now 
professor of Literature at Cornell 
University; Folabo Ajayi-Soyinka, 
professor of Women's Studies and 
Theatre Studies at University of Kansas; 
and Sandra L. Richards, associate 
professor of African-American Studies 
and Theatre at Northwestern University. 
In residence at Emory this last fall, 
Osofisan presented his adaptation of 
Antigone originally by the classical 
Greek dramatist Sophocles at Emory as 
part of a ' brave new works project'. The 
play ran in the evenings of October 21, 
22, 26, 27, 28 and 29, mediated by a 
single matinee on October 23. The latest 
adaptation brings to three the adaptations 
of classical Greek drama related to 
Yorubamythology and culture. The first 
was an adaptation of Euripides' The 
Bacchae by Wole Soyinka in 1972 
commissioned and produced by 
London's Royal National Theatre 
modestly titled The Bacchae of 
Euripides .The second became the very 
popular play, especially with Nigeria's 
secondary school pupils, adapted by 
Nigeria's other highly acclaimed 
dramatist, Ola Rotimi, titled The Gods 
Are Not to Blame, which was adapted 
from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. 
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