The Development of African Drama (Routledge Revivals) - Softcover

Etherton, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032562293 ISBN 13: 9781032562292

Publisher: Routledge, 2025

Synopsis

Originally published in 1982, this book explores concepts such as ‘traditional performance’ and African theatre’. It analyses the links between drama and ritual, and drama and music and diagnoses the confusions in our thought. The reader is reminded that drama is never merely the printed word, but that its existence as literature and in performance is necessarily different. The analysis shows that literature tends to replace performance; and drama, removed from the popular domain, becomes elitist. The book’s richness lies in the constantly stimulating analysis of ‘art’ theatre, as exemplified in protest plays, in African adaptations and transpositions of such classical subjects as the Bacchae and Everyman, in plays on African history, on colonialism and neo-colonialism. The final chapters argue that the form of African drama needs to evolve as the content does.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Etherton is a specialist in popular theatre in the developing world and in the development of Nigerian drama. He was reader in Drama at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032562293
• ISBN 13: 9781032562292
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 370