‘The Revolution as Muse’: drama as surreptitious insurrection in a post-colonial, military state

Abstract

… the only safe place I've ever known is at the centre of a story, as its teller. (Athol Fugard) We might say then … that Osofisan's play is, ultimately, a celebration of the Revolution as Muse. (Abiola Irele) Except by surreptitious tactics, the voice of protest in a one-party state cannot be pressed to the public ear. When the state in question is, in addition, under the iron grip of military dictatorship, and one too that is stridently intolerant of criticism and opposition, protest in whatever form becomes a gamble with danger, unless formulated with especial cunning. In particular, in the field of drama, a recourse to ruse becomes de rigueur , if only because, in theatrical performance, the fate of several persons is involved; hence the artist must accept it as a primary obligation to proceed through such strategies of enlightened guile that will ensure that his or her collaborators do not become the careless victims of official thugs. Happily, however, against the inert silence which autocrats seek to impose upon their subjects, the dissenting artist can triumph through the gift of metaphor and magic, parody and parable, masking and mimicry. With this gift, properly deployed, the terror of the state can be confronted, demystified. But it has to be a conscious tactic of deployment, one that has also to be constantly re-tuned and re-honed to the particular moment, a covert and metamorphic system of manoeuvring which, for want of a better term, I have summarised as ‘surreptitious insurrection’.

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