Wole Soyinka
be apprehensive about, in himself. Others might give it different names, but
he was inclined to see it as having a preternatural affinity to a lightning rod.
(Ibadan,–)
The suggestion in this passage that if Maren does not seek trouble – or
“penkelemes” – trouble will seek him out must be distinguished from
the outsize promethean heroism that later in the narrative dominates
Maren’s role as the protagonist of this memoir. For by a deft weaving
of compelling details of character, coincidence and portents, Soyinka
convincingly presents Maren as the prototype of “okunrin ogun,” the
quintessential human magnet for conflict and dissension. This is con-
tinuous with, but quite distinct from Maren’s other qualities that are
captured in the series of prescient nicknames which his godmother had
given him in his boyhood days at Ak ́e: “okunrin jeje” (“gentle, peaceable
man”) and “Otolorin” (“the one who walks apart/alone”). Significantly,
the adult Maren accepts these names and their encoded attributes, but
tells his friend Komi upon his arrival from his five-year sojourn in Britain:
“I can (now) get down to the business of re-naming myself (Ibadan,).”
This business of fashioning the self through acts and embodied at-
titudes which are precipitated by the pressures and crises of the newly
independent nation givesIbadanits defining narrative texture, positively
but also problematically. The most positive, most affecting and espe-
cially informative for students of Soyinka’s writings are the renderings
of self-constitution relating to Maren’s brand of idealistic, radical artistic
and cultural activities. Accounts of the contexts in which the series of
sketches grouped under the titleBefore the Blackoutwere staged, of the
circumstances which madeDance of the Forestsan unwelcome item in the
official program of the independence celebrations (–), of the incred-
ible gathering of talent, energy and idealism in the theatre companies
“Nineteen Sixty Masks” and “Orisun Theatre,” these provide the only
unambiguously positive and fulfilling spiritual “home” for Maren in the
entire narrative. This much is indeed implicitly admitted by Maren him-
self in his rueful observations on the composition and work of those two
theatre companies:
If no one else missed the Nineteen Sixty Masks after it gradually dissolved in the
seventies and gave way to Orisun Theatre, thesuyavendors of Sagamu surely
did, for Orisun Theatre, tighter, younger and less experienced than the Masks
but full-time, more flexible and more (politically) adventurous, was to stay in
one place, Ibadan, basing most of its activities on the Mbari Arts Club, right in
the teeming heart of Gbagi market and the surrounding streets that were only
an extension of the market.