CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.9. About the Authors 1 Soyinka, Wole
1.9.3 Wale Ogunyemi
Wale Ogunyemi was born in 1939 at Igbajo, a Yoruba town in Osun-State, Nigeria. He grew up in this area of rich Yoruba tradition and customs, acquainting himself with traditional materials of the history of Yoruba people.
He had his primary and secondary education in Igbajo, developing a keen interest in the plays of Shakespeare, which were dominant staples in the college curriculum. This started the influence of Shakespeare on his later career, including his daring adaptation of Macbeth as Aare Akogun (Obafemi, 2004).
He came into active theatre when he auditioned in 1959 for the first Yoruba play on Television titled, Abogunrin. From there, he joined a theatre group called Theatre Express in Osogbo, where he wrote his first drama sketches including Business Headache in 1966. Between 1959 and 1960, Ogunyemi worked with the school of Drama at the University College, Ibadan, especially with the Shakespeare productions directed and adapted by Geoffrey Axworthy. He
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joined Wole Soyinka’s 1960 Masks and subsequently, the Orisun Theatre.
While Wole Soyinka was in prison, he wrote plays for the group. He later joined the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ibadan as a Senior Artiste and Writer. He was writer in residence, with Professor Martin Banham, at the workshop theatre, University of Leeds in 1974-1975. He became Deputy Director of Unibadan masque in 1976 (Obafemi, (2004).
He won the Writers Guild Award in 1982 and the University of California African Award. He was Vice president of the Association of Nigerian Authors for two years in the mid -1990’s. Because of the numerous plays he wrote and their popularity with the Nigerian audience, Ogunyemi has remained one of the most popular Nigerian playwrights. Most of his plays, written in both English and Yoruba languages, are more accessible to a larger audience than those of other Nigerian playwrights. This ability has mainly been due to Ogunyemi’s experience working with the Yoruba professional theatre groups and the theatre groups who perform plays in English.
The uniqueness of Ogunyemi in Nigerian Theatre history is that he combines live theatre practice with television and radio drama. He was unquestionably one of the most versatile theatre practitioners in contemporary Nigeria. In spite of this, his dramatic texts have received very little critical attention, ironically for the very reason that they are populist as they are not exotic literary texts.
Ogunyemi can be categorized according to Yerima (2004, p.78) “as a transitional dramatist who occupies a critical watershed between the populist vernacular folk drama pioneered by Ogunde” and numerous Yoruba travelling theatre practitioners, including Duro Ladipo, Kola Ogunmola, Moses Olaiya, Lere Paimo and so on, on the one hand, and the “conspicuously exotic literary drama of English expression led by Henshaw, Soyinka, Clark etc., on the other hand”. Femi Abolarin describes Ogunyemi as representing the “quintessential bridge between a literary academic dramatic experience and the so-called popular theatre” (Abodurin, 1995, p.60). Ogunyemi’s most popular plays are;
Kiriji (1976), Ijaye War (1970) and The Vow (1985).
21 1.10. Structure of the study
This study is divided into seven chapters:
Chapter One: This introduces what the study sets out to do. It provides some introductory perspectives of the phenomenon of suicide and establishes a firm background upon which the study is built. The chapter further states the problem of the study, the main objectives, as well as the research questions that the study will answer at the end. The methodology is discussed as well as the significance of the study. The chapter provides a brief over-view of the Yoruba culture and concludes by looking at the profile of the authors whose plays are selected for the analysis.
Chapter Two: this discusses the relevant literature as well as arguments in the thesis. It begins by introducing the chapter and it also provides a narrative/definition of suicide. It also looks at the global perspective on suicide especially in the western world and examines the phenomenon in a Western and African context. The concept of death in traditional Yoruba culture is looked at so that the phenomenon of suicide can be appreciated both in the aesthetic and in the socio-cultural representation of it. After that, there is a careful look at the representation of suicide in traditional Yoruba culture as well as the reception of it. The chapter proceeds to look at suicide in some African plays to establish the representation of the phenomenon within these theatrical perspectives. The chapter also looks at suicide in some western literature. The chapter also takes a comparative look at suicide in different cultures and looks at the commonalities they share. This leads to the conclusion of the chapter.
Chapter Three: this chapter looks at the theoretical framework adopted for the study. It presents the theory that will be used for the analysis of the selected plays. The Marxist literary theory is adopted for this study and the theory is viewed through the lenses of Fredric Jameson, George Lukacs and Terry Eagleton
Chapter Four: this chapter demonstrates an in-depth textual analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the king’s horseman. It focuses its analysis on the phenomenon of suicide and how it is represented in the play. The chapter begins
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by looking at the historical events that led to the creative inspiration of the play.
The chapter proceeds by providing a synopsis of the play as well as the artistic and creative vision of Soyinka. The chapter also looks at the critical reviews of other scholars. The chapter then provides a critical analysis of the acts of suicide as evidenced in the play.
Chapter Five: this chapter engages in an in-depth analysis of Ola Rotimi’s Kurunmi. It begins by looking at other perspectives which the selected plays have been analysed before focusing on the perspective of suicide as represented in the play.
Chapter Six: this chapter engages in an in-depth analysis of Wale Ogunyemi’s The Vow. It concentrates its analysis on the phenomenon of suicide after exploring the play from multiple dimensions. This is done to understand what has been said about the play so that the analysis will present an original contribution.
Chapter Seven: this will be the concluding part of the thesis. This segment will have a summary and will show whether or not the research questions have been answered and the objectives of the research have been met. It will also look at the findings and implications for further research.
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