Dovlo: A Worthless Sweat

by Patron Henekou, Akoete Amouzou (Preface)

The play, Dovlo, one of Patron Henekou’s creations to be finally known to the public, is a story cut out of the maze of a commonplace land issue of life in traditional Ewe milieu, and, by extension, traditional Africa. Personally enjoying an accurate and palpable knowledge of traditional Africa, Patron Henekou, through this play, raises queries about what it takes to own, share, and being dispossessed of land in Africa. All the talents of Henekou focus, in this silvered-mirror of a play, on a misanthropist Kulekpato, a man with no respect for and dream about the future, who fails to be community-oriented. This central character quickly deploys the costume of the locally all-powerful African politicians, imbued with power who definitely cannot share with others. Kulekpato is the living paradigm of power-grabbing individuals of Africa with whom dialog cannot be installed, not even mentioned. This flat character embodies individual supremacy as experienced in Africa day in and day out, supremacy in pure state. Unreservedly, the writer offers a true indigestion of this vice that most powerful persons of Africa cannot rid themselves of. Nausea rises in readers, extends tentacles to disgust with its devastating effects.
The message then seems to let us take our distance from the powerful hurricanes of African Kulekpatos; beware of resembling those dried and thirsted souls; avoid the meshes of their dismal veil. But this would be without taking into account the powerful message of Dovlo that emerges from the epigraphic song to this We cannot and should stand aside and look. Dovlo, far from inviting us to simply see our sweat worthlessly dry away, is a call for commitment. Each of us from their own side has something to do about the situation. Passivity is denied here, action encouraged.
Besides, the reader is very quickly dazzled with tradition in this play, not through its pervasive presence but through the artful craft with which it is made by the playwright to flourish through the lines. Dovlo is an easy read. Although words therein are choicy, they are made so through crystal-clear Henekou-made English. Dovlo is finally one of those books you are in a hurry to start reading once you finish it.

23 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2016