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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'African Brecht'
Author:Crow, BrianISNI
Year:2009
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:40
Issue:2
Pages:190-207
Language:English
Geographic terms:Africa
Nigeria
Subjects:theatre
drama
culture contact
About persons:Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1898-1956)
Mohammed Ben AbdallahISNI
Wole Soyinka (1934-)
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v040/40.2.crow.pdf
Abstract:The theory and practice of Bertolt Brecht's epic theatre have been influential in the development of literary theatre in sub-Saharan Africa. But while affinities with Brechtian ideals and practice may certainly be seen to exist both in dramaturgy and in audience reception, the characteristic activity of African audiences is typically in complex and uneasy tension with the 'Brechtian' impulse. In particular, many African theatre goers are sustained by the conviction that morality is a matter of permanent truths or fixed essences, rather than, as in Brecht's formulation, of dialectical relationships. The essay examines how audiences' ingrained ethical opinion may affect interpretation in ways that seem quite un-Brechtian, illustrating its argument from a Nigerian university production of 'The Good Person of Szechwan'. It then proceeds to discuss how patterns of dramaturgy may also be influenced by particular kinds of audience as well as, more generally, by their habitual moralistic expectations, basing its analysis on three published African adaptations of Brecht's plays: the Ghanaian Mohammed ben Abdallah's 'Land of a Million Magicians' (first produced in 1991), based on 'The Good Person of Szechwan', and two versions of 'The Threepenny Opera', the Nigerian Wole Soyinka's 'Opera Wonyosi' (first performed in 1977) and the South African Junction Avenue Theatre Company's 'Love, Crime and Johannesburg', which premiered in 1999. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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