Emmanuel Gladstone Olawale Rotimi better known as Ola Rotimi Nigerian playwright, manager and professor was born April 13, 1938 to an Ijaw female parent Dorcas Oruene ( a terpsichorean ) from Nembe in Eastern Nigeria and a Yoruba male parent Samuel Enitan ( a steam-launch applied scientist of Western Nigeria. The youngest of three kids, Olawale, attended St. Cyprians School in Port Harcourt from 1945 to 1949, St Jude ‘s School, Lagos from 1951 to 1952 and the Methodist Boys High School in the so capital metropolis of Lagos from 1952 to 1956, gaining the monikers “ Shakespeare incarnate ” and “ the Poet ” for his authorship.
He grew up amidst the humanistic disciplines larning four of the three hundred matured linguistic communications spoken in Nigeria, every bit good as English, the functionary and administrative linguistic communication of the state.
Ola ‘s female parent who excelled in traditional dance, managed her ain dance group from 1945 to 1949. His male parent frequently wrote and recited verse forms. He besides organized the community theatre in Port Harcourt where his boy, Ola, grew up. Ola ‘s uncle, Chief Robert Dede, was the lead performing artist in a traditional dance company. Dede and his terpsichoreans, dressed in luxuriant costumes, danced, American ginseng, and acted in what was one of the most dramatic of such companies, more frequently called masks, in Rivers State.
Ola foremost appeared on phase when he was merely four old ages of age in 1942 in a drama directed and produced by his male parent. For the following 58 old ages, Rotimi lived on the phase, across the universe, with staunchness, devotedness, committedness and zest..believing “ in the redemptive and transformatory power of theater in a society in a desperate demand for societal and religious regeneration. ” Some of his plants were broadcast on Nigerian wireless and published in institutional magazines.
Bing among three Nigerians awarded scholarships to analyze theatre abroad, Ola Rotimi, travelled to the United States in 1959. He studied at Boston University gaining a B.A. in all right humanistic disciplines in 1963 and attended the Yale School of Drama ( M.F.A. , 1966 ) , concentrating on playwrighting as a major, supported by a Rockefeller Fellowship. He learned much about dramatic art.
He was active in the African Students Union at Boston University, functioning as its president, and actively prosecuting in protests against colonialism and in favour of African patriotisms.
Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again his outstanding comedy about African political relations was written in America, with a actual Afro-american character in October and November of 1965, with considerable rewriting during dry runs in New Haven and once more after the drama ‘s first Nigerian public presentation in September, 1966 at the University of Ife.
This drama had roots in Rotimi ‘s ain domestic state of affairs in New Haven in 1965, as he had late married Hazel Mae Gaudreau, a ( white ) Gallic Canadian pupil at Yale with whom he bore four kids: Enitan, Oruene ( girl ) , Biodun, Kole thus.making the jobs inherent in a cross-cultural matrimony influence his subconscious to happen look in facets of the drama, his ultimate end being to laugh at the many political mountebanks, in Africa. Liza Born in Kenya, met Lejoka-Brown in Congo but has lived much of her life in the United States, which has shaped her universe position. At Yale the drama directed by Jack Landau won the Student Play of the Year Award for 1966.
Cultural diverseness was a repeating subject in his dramas as he frequently examined Nigeria ‘s history and cultural traditions. His first dramas To Stir the God of Iron ( produced 1963 ) was staged at the drama school of Boston University. His really successful and popular production in 1968 of his version of Sophocles ‘ tragic drama Oedipus Rex, The Supreme beings Are Not to Blame ( published 1971 ) in inventive poetry retells the narrative of Oedipus the King to turn to modern-day issues in Africa and the universe whilst doing ample usage of traditional Yoruba Proverbs and idiomatic looks translated to English, it aggressively warns people to take duty for what is go oning to them, instead than faulting everything on forces beyond their control. The drama is studied widely in schools in Africa,
The interplay between the Greek and the Yoruba traditions, are reflected in the work. “ Sophocles explores the tragic destiny of a adult male destined by the Gods to kill his male parent and get married his female parent. In Grecian mythology, whatever the Gods decree must come to go through whereas in the African mythology explored by Rotimi, ways exist to appeal to the Gods to debar such horrifying experiences.
His ulterior play include some of the most celebrated classics on the Nigerian phase ; Cast the first Stone ( 1966 ) Kurunmi and the Prodigal ( produced 1969 ; published as Kurunmi, 1971 ) , written for the 2nd Ife Festival of Arts ; Ovonramwen Nogbaisi ( produced 1971 ; published 1974 ) , about the last swayer of the Benin imperium ; Keeping Talks ( 1979, If: A Calamity of the Ruled ( 1979 ) ( 1983 ) , Hopes of the Living Dead ( 1988 ) , which premiered at the University of Port Harcourt and was a common drama in the OAU Drama section, .the wireless drama Everyone His/Her Own Problem which was broadcast in 1987. and When the Criminals Become Judges ( 1995 )
One of the most important African dramatists, his dramatic plants have been performed in Europe and Africa and are being studied in European and American universities in African surveies plans every bit good as throughout Africa.
He has besides published short narratives and critical articles on African theatre. His book African Dramatic Literature: To Be or to Become? was published in 1991.
Upon his return to Nigeria, in 1966, he taught at the University of Ife ( now Obafemi Awolowo University ) and Port Harcourt. Partially due to political conditions in Nigeria, he spent much of the 1990s life in the Caribbean and the United States, where from 1995 to 1997 he was the Hubert H. Humphrey Visiting Professor of International Studies and Dramatic Arts and Dance at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has besides served as visiting professor, dramatist, and manager in Germany and Italy, every bit good as at DePauw University and Wabash University. In 2000 he returned to Ile-Ife, fall ining the module of Obafemi Awolowo University where he lectured till his death. Hazel ( his married woman ) died merely a twosome of months before in May 2000.
While in University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, he brought the school theater to such great highs that when he left for Obafemi Awolowo University, his grade of excellence in its Theatre Arts section continued, with the school bring forthing aspiring and budding immature stars in the films industry in Nigeria. Rotimi has taken many plants straight to the people with the University of Ife Theatre, a repertory company that performs plants in Yoruba, Nigerian pidgin, and English.
The 2nd half of his last originative decennary Rotimi spent make overing two of his amusing dramas: Man talk, Woman talk which was his last production staged at the Gallic Institute in Lagos, Nigeria.and Tororo, Tororo, Roro a drama of the Absurd he produced as a convocation drama. Both were likely meant to be an epilogue to both his full theatrical and amusing careers.. Tororo, Tororo, Roro a coinciding meeting of Tunji Oginni and Philomena James both running Hotel Kilimanjaro with different motivations and a opportunity meeting by both of them arousing lessons as both portion each other ‘s jobs in a version of ‘Nigerian English.
Man talk, Woman talk doing usage of dry temper seeks a flat playing land for declaration of the prejudices work forces and adult females nurse about one another and which affect their common co-existence. The scene is a tribunal though devoid of the usual trifles of tribunal suites. Alternatively of legal slang, there is wit, statements and counter statements. A great trade of humor is in the work set in the university environment where the vernal rivals are idealistic.
These societal sarcasms, yet unpublished at the clip of his decease in 2002, have now been published under the rubric, The Epilogue.
Rotimi though bantam in size was a elephantine in play in Africa and a theoretical account in the literary genre whose positions have shaped the behavior of the theatre. He.has through his dramas demonstrated the power of play to determine the thought of the society and to work out some of the jobs encountered in mundane living.. He has left his pes print as a innovator of the theater in English, most particularly through the span he created between the popular Yoruba theater and the English theater. His importunate strong belief of the remedy and delivering power of the humanistic disciplines and the theater, made him eventually return to Nigeria to restart his theater pattern and scholarship. ” He has “ removed African history from the pages of books written by the colonizer, fused it with unwritten history and made it portion of our lives. ”
