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‘Folkism’: Towards a National Aesthetic Principle for Nigerian Dramaturgy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Sam Ukala
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Abstract

Nigerian playwrights face the problem not only of finding ways of communicating with their audiences which address popular concerns in an assimilable manner, but of deciding the appropriate language in which to do so, in a notion which embraces many language groups and cultures. The solution of employing English as a lingua franca poses problems hung over from the colonialist past – and a tendency for plays written in English also to employ an inappropriate western dramaturgy. In the following article, Sam Ukala considers the various objections raised to English-language Nigerian plays, conceding some points and answering others, and proposing the concept of ‘folkism’ as a national aesthetic principle – a way of reconciling the use of a common language with the distinctive and often disparate needs of the Nigerian people.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 47 , August 1996 , pp. 279 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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