Contemporary African Plays: Death and the King's;Anowa;Chattering & the Song;Rise & Shine of Comrade;Woza Albert!;Other War

(Paperback)

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Contemporary African Plays, edited with Introductions by Martin Banham and Jane Plastow of Leeds University, is a collection of some of the most exciting plays from the past twenty-five years of African theatre, spanning the continent's rich and disparate regional and cultural traditions. Included in this collection are three of the most significant plays of this century plus three brilliant plays which will be new to Western audiences: Death and the King's Horseman - A masterpiece from the Nobel-prize-winning Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka Woza Albert! - A skilful and devastating political satire from South Africa by the writers/performers Percy Mtwa and Mbongeni Ngema and Market Theatre director, the late Barney Simon Anowa - A powerful tale from Ghana which tells of a woman's plight and oppression by Ama Ata Aidoo The Chattering and the Song - An ingenious radical drama from the popular Nigerian playwright Femi Osofisan The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco - A witty political allegory about post-colonial Zimbabwe, by Andrew Whaley The Other War - An extraordinary insight into Africa's longest liberation war, by the Eritrean playwright Alemseged TesfaiThe only current anthology to survey the rich variety of contemporary African drama The plays included in this volume are: Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka; Anowa by Ama Ata Aidoo; The Chattering and the Song by Femi Osofisan; The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco by Andrew Whaley; Woza Albert! by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema and Barney Simon; and The Other War by Alemseged Tesfai. Contemporary African Drama brings together some of the best writers writing from an African viewpoint today.

Author Bio

Wole Soyinka is a playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist born in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1934. Soyinka won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature with his debut novel, The Interpreters, becoming the first-ever African laureate and has since won many other prizes such as the Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award in 2009 and the Anisfield-Wolf book Award, Lifetime Achievement in 2012. A prominent political activist, Soyinka was imprisoned for nearly two years during the Nigerian Civil War and was later exiled. He continues to fight against government corruption and oppression worldwide. Percy Mtwa was born and bred in Wattville, Benoni. In 1979 director Gibson Kente gave him a role as singer/dancer in Mama and the Load, which played at the Market and Baxter Theatres and toured South Africa. Mbongeni Ngema was born in Umkumbane, Durban. He wrote and presented a play, Too Harsh, appeared in Kessie Govender's Working Class Hero, then wrote and, with Kessie's help, directed The Last Generation. In 1979 he came to Johannesburg and approached Gibson Kente for work, finally getting a character role in Mama and the Load, where he met Percy Mtwa with whom he would collaborate, along with Barney Simon, on Woza Albert. Barney Simon, founding Artistic Director of the Market Theatre, was born in Johannesburg. After backstaging for Joan Littlewood in the late 1950s, he joined Athol Fugard in Johannesburg's Dorkay House Rehearsal Room where The Blood Knot was first staged. He directed Fugard in Krapp's Last Tape and the first production of Fugard's own Hello and Goodbye. In 1974 he founded the Company with Mannie Manim, which made its home in Johannesburg's old Market in 1976. He was the three-time winner of the Breytenbach Epathlon for best director. Barney Simon died in 1995. Professor Ama Ata Aidoo (b. 1943) is a Ghanaian author and playwright. Having grown up in a Fante royal household, she attended Wesley Girls' High School in Cape Coast. Her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost was produced in 1964, and published the following year, making her the first female African dramatist to be published. She is currently long term Visiting Professor and writer in residence of Africana Studies and Creative Writing at Brown University, Rhode Island. Femi Osofisan is one of the most regularly performed playwrights in Nigeria. He has been Professor of Drama at the University of Ibadan since 1985 and, for a time, was the General Manager and Chief Executive of the National Theatre, Lagos. Osofisan has written over fifty plays, many of which have been performed across the world. Andrew Whaley is a leading Zimbabwean playwright. His plays have won major awards at the festivals of the National Theatre Organization, and include Chef's Breakfast, The Nyoka Tree, Platform 5, and The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco, which won the Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1990. Born in 1944 in the southern Eritrean town of Adi Quala, Alemseged Tesfai is Eritrea's premier playwright. His play The Other War was the first Eritrean play to be published and the first to be translated into English.