Eguria

  THE MARRIAGE OF ANANSEWAA   BY EFUA T. SUTHERLAND   AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND   Efua T. Sutherland is a Ghanaian, she is an innovator and she founded an Experimental Theater in 1958 and her plays, in Akan were acted. She has experimented with the integration of traditional Africa forms and European theatrical practice.   The Marriage of Anansewaa is an experimental drama, for the playwright deviates from western/European conventional forms. Among the works of Efua Sutherland are: Anansewaa and the Dwarf Brigade, a play developed from a folktale, and Edufa. The dramatist uses the traditional folktales of her people – Akan people – to teach morals. TEXTUAL BACKGROUND AND SETTING   The Marriage of Anansewaa is from 'Anansesem' – a form of storytelling by the Akan-speaking people developed from ‘Anansegoro.’ The name of 'Anansesem' literally means Ananse story. Ananse means spider. Ananse appears to represent a kind of every man, artistically exagger...

OLA ROTIMI: THE gods ARE NOT TO BLAME   AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND   Emmanuel Gladstone Olawole Rotimi was born on 13 April, 1938 in Sapele, Delta State of Nigeria. He had his primary and post-primary education in Nigeria from where he went to America for a degree in Drama at Boston University, and Yale University for a postgraduate degree in play-writing and Directing.   His published play include The gods are not to blame, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, Kurummi, Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, If, Holding Talks, and Hopes of the Living dead. He is a professor of drama and he is married with children. TEXTUAL BACKGROUND AND SETTING   The play has a Nigeria cultural setting, specifically Yoruba setting. Thus, there are references to Yoruba towns like Ede and Osogbo, and the imaginary towns (a Yoruba city) Kutuje, where the actions of the play is centralized.   The Gods Are Not to Blame is an adaptation of the ancient Greek play Oedipus Rex-King Oedipus – written ...

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: TWELFTH NIGHT             AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND   William Shakespeare was born in 1564 at Stratford-on-Avon to John and Mary Shakespeare.   He was educated at the free grammar school, Stratford, and got married to Anne Hathaway in 1582. Around 1585, Shakespeare moved his family to London to settle. It is conjectured that he was a schoolmaster at Stratford, but when he got to London he worked in some subordinate capacity in one of the two existing theaters in London (the Theater and the Curtain). By 1592, William Shakespeare had become an actor and a playwright.   Before he abandoned dramatic composition, Shakespeare had written thirty-seven plays and one hundred and sixty sonnet and poems. He left London in 1611 for Stratford where he had built an estate and permanently settled until his death in 1616. It has been remarked that ‘William Shakespeare is indisputably the greatest dramatist and poet that England, and pr...