Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.2. The source language system
2.2.2.1. Historical perspective
Before the official annexation of Cameroon by the Germans in 1884/85, missionaries from the British Isles and America who had been active for a long time in Cameroon found that drama was a very effective means of communicating the Christian religion to the natives. Their method consisted mainly in dramatizing passages from the Bible during such festive occasions as Christmas and Easter. These performances were usually done in churches and were very similar to the morality plays of the Middle Ages in Europe. They were generally staged in the missionary settlements in the towns of Bojongo, Victoria, Douala, Yaounde, Foulassi, etc. Bible stories such as “The Parable of the Ten Virgins”, “The Birth and Death of Christ”, “The Treachery of Judas”, were dramatized in local languages.
In this period drama was used to propagate Christianity and to curb so-called heathenish attitudes in the natives. From thematic and formalistic perspectives, the goal is to ridicule aspects of ethnic values while upholding and celebrating the virtues of the foreign culture. This ideological brainwashing and the influence of a benevolent environment which gives rise to rather leisurely existence tended to orientate drama towards the comic.
Later on, with the creation of schools, the missionary teachers felt the need to use drama as a teaching method. The acquisition of literacy led to the staging of works of European playwrights such as Molière, Corneille, Racine and Shakespeare.
Today, when we talk of Cameroonian drama, there are certain landmarks that characterise it. First, it should be noted that Cameroonian drama in the native languages is nonexistent because these languages are only now being reduced to writing, mainly by missionary organisations with a view to translating the Bible.
Secondly, there is Cameroonian drama written in English. Before the country achieved independence there were only two playwrights of English expression: Charles Low, a British playwright, who wrote White Flours the Latex in 1940 and Sankie Maimo, a Cameroonian, who wrote I am Vindicated in 1942, in which he exalts the triumph of the Western civilisation over traditional civilisation. After independence and with the advent of multiparty politics and freedom of expression in the eighties, Sankie Maimo published Succession in Sarkou (1982); Bole Butake published Betrothal without Libation (1981), The Rape of Michelle (1984) and Lake God (1986); Victor Elame Musinga, Njemen (1974) and The Tragedy of Mr No Balance (1976); Bate Besong, The Most Cruel Death of the Talkative Zombie (1985) and Sammy Kum Buo, For Self, For Tribe, For Country (1973).
All these plays published after independence and mainly after the post-independence totalitarian and monolithic political period, depict contemporary problems of Cameroonian society: corruption, abuse of power, moral decadence, inefficiency of the administration and political elite in solving the problems of the masses.
Thirdly, there is the more abundant Cameroonian drama written in French. The period before independence records about eleven playwrights, all of whom are former seminarians whose teachers were missionaries who naturally taught the drama of their country of origin and sought essentially to entertain and not to portray Cameroonian values. These playwrights thus applied to the letter the models of Corneille, Molière and Racine taught to them in school. Their plays do not depict Cameroonian problems and serve instead to disseminate or propagate the ideology of the colonizing or
“civilizing” French nation.
The post-independence period between 1960 and 1969 witnessed an even greater number of playwrights of French expression. The most prominent and representative playwrights of this period are Guillaume Oyono Mbia with Trois prétendants, un mari published in 1959, Stanislas Awona with Le Chomeur in 1961, René Philombe with Africapolis in 1968 and Patrice Ndedi Penda with Le Fusil in 1969. The playwrights of this period while breaking away from the earlier playwrights in some respects are not fundamentally different from their predecessors in that Molière and the other prominent French playwrights still mainly served as models. For instance, Oyono Mbia maintained the classical structure of the play into acts and scenes in Trois prétendants, un mari and Le train special de son Excellence, although he breaks away from this in Jusqu’à nouvel avis by ignoring acts and scenes and rather presenting the play as one long sequence.
The period between 1970 and 1979 witnessed an even greater number of plays written in French and the drama of this period is characterised by plays with a text and plays without a text. With regard to plays with a text, the introduction of a drama competition by Radio France Internationale (the Concours Théâtral Interafricain) for African French-speaking countries saw the production of a significant number of plays with texts produced on stencil and which were duplicated and circulated. This was motivated by the fact that prize-winning plays were also broadcast over Radio France Internationale throughout its entire network covering all African French-speaking countries.
However, a significant number of drama performances during this period equally consisted of plays without a text. These plays are characterised by a curious combination of elements drawn from Cameroonian oral tradition and European drama recorded and continue to record a huge success before the Cameroonian audience.
The period between 1980 to the present date is a very rich and prolific one for Cameroonian drama particularly of French expression. The playwrights are more daring and innovative than their predecessors. All problems of the Cameroonian
society are mirrored in their plays without fear as a result of the much relaxed political atmosphere. The plays pull huge crowds and the audience is composed of all the social classes: the ordinary man on the street, college and university students, traders, civil servants, intellectuals, etc.
From the above brief socio-political and historical survey it is evident that the relationship of Cameroonian drama with the society which it tries to depict has always been particular, circumstantial and very bound in time and space. Indeed, this relationship has always changed or evolved through the periods surveyed dictated by the education and level of the playwrights, the nature and composition of the audience, the aspirations and demands of the audience and the general state of the society in its socio-political evolution.
Plays of the colonial and pre-independence period ignore problems of the Cameroonian society owing to the stifling atmosphere in which the colonized lived. In the period immediately following independence (1960-1969) the plays simply imitate the European model while depicting social issues but they did not dare to attack or criticize the prevailing political and social conditions owing to the omnipresence of a political machinery of oppression and repression. Despite the relatively more relaxed political atmosphere during the 1970-1979 period the playwrights are still afraid of the forces of repression. Most of them take refuge in plays without a text given that “verba volant, scripta manent” (i.e. the spoken word is evanescent while the printed word remains). Those playwrights whose plays have a text and who even dare to talk about political issues do so from a rather general and evasive perspective without actually focussing on the Cameroonian situation, since they know that despite the apparently relaxed political atmosphere, the sword of Damocles is still hanging over their heads, ready to drop at the slightest prank.
It is worth mentioning here that while on the whole Cameroonian playwrights refrained from criticising the colonial administration and the post-independence oppressive political regime, some Cameroonian novelists did, however, take the bull
by the horns by daring to criticise the political situation in their novels. For instance, all Ferdinand Oyono’s three novels: Une vie de boy, Le vieux nègre et la médaille and Chemin d’Europe focus on the colonial period. They sharply criticise the colonial administration and Christianity, exposing the immense damage caused to Cameroonian society and its traditional values. On his part, Mongo Beti in Ville cruelle, Main basse sur le Cameroun, Mission terminée, La ruine presque cocasse d’un polichinelle as well as other novels by the same author, level very sharp and caustic criticisms at the post-independence repressive political regime and the decadent socio-economic situation it has engendered. The titles of all these works are in themselves very telling.
However, it should also be indicated that these writers wrote from abroad in exile where several attempts were even made on their lives by agents of the oppressive forces targeted in their novels.
From 1980 to the present date, with the advent of multiparty politics and freedom of expression, Cameroonian drama has really flourished both from the point of view of its themes and its structure. It addresses all issues and nothing is taboo. Its structure is innovative and there is a marked departure from the traditional classical division into five acts and six scenes per act. While some playwrights now structure their plays into two, three, seven and even ten acts, others structure theirs into sequences, tableaux, movements and in certain cases, only scenes. Mbassi (1988:122) equally sums up this prevailing situation as follows:
Trois sillages se dessinent dans cette diversité. Ceux qui restent attachés à la tradition classique occidentale et dont Joseph Ngoué peut être présenté comme le chef de file. Ceux qui encore marqué par le théâtre classique s’emploient à le dépasser par de sensibles innovations. Dans cette tendance peuvent être cités René Philombe, Guillaume Oyono Mbia, David Ndachi Tagne. Ceux qui, comme A.Kum’a Ndumbe III sachant que le théâtre classique s’impose encore, oeuvrent de toute leur énergie pour le combattre. Ceux qui enfin se comportant comme s’il n’avait jamais existé un théâtre classique. Il s’agit de Were Were Liking et de Manuna Mandjock. [Three trends stand out of this diversity.
Those who have remained attached to the Western classical tradition with Joseph Ngoué considered as the most prominent figure. Those who are still marked by classical theatre and are striving to transcend it through significant innovations. In this
category can be cited René Philombe, Guillaume Oyono Mbia, David Ndachi Tagne. Those who, like A. Kum’a Ndumbe III, conscious of the fact that classical theatre is still dominant, do everything to combat it. Finally, those who behave as if classical theatre had never existed. These include Were Were Liking and Manuna Mandjock.]
With respect to the above prevailing situation, it is necessary to consider what, today, can be considered to constitute the literary and textual characteristics of Cameroonian drama.