The Oriki of a Grasshopper and Other Plays

by Femi Osofisan

Winner of the first Association of Nigerian Authors drama prize in 1983, Femi Osofisan is an important, emerging voice in contemporary theatre. He probes the agency of the ordinary man and woman in an age when the possibilities for productive labor have been globalized, capital is hoarded in the strongboxes of a relatively small number of transnational corporations, and a Nigerian elite further strips the nation of its tremendous physical and moral resources. Grounding his vision of change in a dialectical reading of history, Osofisan manipulated his Yoruba and Western heritages in order to speak of the challenges facing his society and to scrutinize the practice of art. To some Nigerians, he is a radical who is sounding a welcome critique; to others, he is a subversive, intent on wrenching society from its moorings; and to still others, he is a contradictory mix of socialist rhetoric and romantic, elitist impulses.This volume comprises four plays-THE ORIKI OF A GRASSHOPPER, ESU and the VAGABOND MINSTRELS, BIRTHDAYS ARE NOT FOR DYING, and MOROUNTODON-and an introduction by Abiola Irele that examines the playwright's achievement. The plays combine traditional Nigerian folk figures and legends with modern themes, or use the traditional to underscore, and comment on, the corruption and danger found in modern life.

195 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1995

About the author

Femi Osofisan studied in Ibadan, Dakar and Paris and taught theatre and comparative literature at the University of Ibadan for 34 years, a post from which he recently retired.
Osofisan’s professional experience is manifold—he is an award-winning poet, writer, actor, company director, journalist and scholar. But it is as playwright that he established his reputation, having written and produced over fifty plays, roughly half of which have been published.
Among these are a series of plays which speak of Osofisan’s long-standing interest in reinterpreting European works in the context of African—specifically, Yoruba—traditions and customs. He approaches his continuous search for a viable modern written theatre that would still be authentically African not only in terms of shared thematic concerns but, more importantly, with a view to form and technique.
He has worked on several canonical texts—including Shakespeare, Chekov, Gogol, Brecht, Feydeau, Frisch, and Sophocles—and discussed in his essays the consequences of this interweaving of cultures aimed at producing a new synthesis. What comes out of the commingling of Soyinka and Brecht or Grotowski, Clark and Ogunde with Barrault, Rotimi with Mnouchekine and so on, particularly against the backdrop of our traditional performance aesthetics? How can all these elements be pressed into the service of a ‘committed theatre’ in the age of globalized neo-colonialism and increasingly globalized terrorism on the one hand and of ‘Nollywood’ and proliferating Pentecostal movements on the other?