The “drama of existence”: sources and scope Africa and the contemporary world. And most important of all, Soyinka’s
plays are performed throughout Africa and the rest of the world, in the
English-language original and in translations into many of the world’s
major literary languages. Soyinka may indeed be the first non-European,
non-American playwright to have achieved this particular status as a
dramatist.
The criticisms often leveled at Soyinka’s novels give us some clues to
the aesthetic factors behind the relatively greater success of his dramas.
There has been notable praise for Soyinka’s technical accomplishments
as a novelist in his first novel,The Interpreters, but many critics have noted
that the characters and situations in his second novel,Season of Anomy,
are too abstract, too cerebral to really come alive in ways that engage
readers at deep emotional and psychological levels.This is a criticism
that no one can validly apply to Soyinka’s dramas. Expressed differently,
the characters ofThe Interpreters, such as Egbo, Bamidele, or Lazarus, and
ofSeason of Anomy, such as Ofeyi, Iriyise or “the Dentist,” do not come
close to the presence, individuality and memorableness of the characters
of Soyinka’s haunting creations in dramatic characterization such as we
have in the likes of Demoke and Eshuoro inDance of the Forests, Baroka
inLion and the Jewel, Jero in the two “Jero plays,” Professor, Samson and
Say-Tokyo Kid inThe Road, the Old Man and the mendicants inMadmen
and Specialistand Elesin Oba inDeath and the King’s Horseman.
Soyinka comes to these two genres – the novel and drama – with the
same self-confident aesthetic venturesomeness, the same boldly innova-
tive spirit. What distinguishes his vastly dissimilar accomplishments in
each of these genres is perhaps connected to the fact of the dramatic
text’s links to the medium of stage performance. These links impose
obligations of effective communication between the writer and his or
her audience that don’t exist for the novelist, obligations codified as con-
ventions specific to the genre of drama. Soyinka has shown himself to be
more a master and innovator in the manipulation of the conventions of
drama and theatre than he has been with those of narrative.
There are several factors responsible for this, some simple and un-
complicated, others more complex. One fairly obvious, incontrovertible
and well-documented factor is Soyinka’s extensive experience in the the-
atre in Britain and Nigeria. His formal apprenticeship in the theatre, as
well as some of his early work, took place in the British theatre at a
time of important, seminal redirection in the art and politics of that
theatre. Additionally, his work as a playwright has been tremendously
affected by his work with some of the most important English-language