Femi Osofisan
Fellow
Femi Osofisan studied in Ibadan, Dakar and Paris, and taught theater and comparative literature at the University of Ibadan for 34 years. Since his recent retirement, he has been appointed Professor Emeritus by the same university. Osofisan’s professional experience is manifold—he is an award-winning poet, writer, actor, company director, journalist and scholar. But it is as a playwright that he established his reputation, having written and produced over fifty plays, roughly half of which have been published. Among these are a series of plays that speak to Osofisan’s long-standing interest in reinterpreting European works in the context of African—specifically Yoruba—traditions and customs. He approaches his continuous search for a viable modern written theater that would still be authentically African not only in terms of shared thematic concerns but, more importantly, with a view to form and technique. He has worked on several canonical texts—including Shakespeare, Chekhov, Gogol, Brecht, Feydeau, Frisch and Sophocles—and discussed in his essays the consequences of this interweaving of cultures aimed at producing a new synthesis. What is the result of the commingling of Soyinka and Brecht or Grotowski, Clark and Ogunde with Barrault, Rotimi with Mnouchekine, and so on, particularly against the backdrop of our traditional performance aesthetics? How can all these elements be pressed into the service of a “committed theater” in the age of globalized neo-colonialism and increasingly globalized terrorism on the one hand, and of “Nollywood” and proliferating Pentecostal movements on the other?
THIS AUTHOR WROTE
Femi Osofisan studied in Ibadan, Dakar and Paris, and taught theater and comparative literature at the University of Ibadan for 34 years. Since his recent retirement, he has been appointed Professor Emeritus by the same university. Osofisan’s professional experience is manifold—he is an award-winning poet, writer, actor, company director, journalist and scholar. But it is as a playwright that he established his reputation, having written and produced over fifty plays, roughly half of which have been published. Among these are a series of plays that speak to Osofisan’s long-standing interest in reinterpreting European works in the context of African—specifically Yoruba—traditions and customs. He approaches his continuous search for a viable modern written theater that would still be authentically African not only in terms of shared thematic concerns but, more importantly, with a view to form and technique. He has worked on several canonical texts—including Shakespeare, Chekhov, Gogol, Brecht, Feydeau, Frisch and Sophocles—and discussed in his essays the consequences of this interweaving of cultures aimed at producing a new synthesis. What is the result of the commingling of Soyinka and Brecht or Grotowski, Clark and Ogunde with Barrault, Rotimi with Mnouchekine, and so on, particularly against the backdrop of our traditional performance aesthetics? How can all these elements be pressed into the service of a “committed theater” in the age of globalized neo-colonialism and increasingly globalized terrorism on the one hand, and of “Nollywood” and proliferating Pentecostal movements on the other?
July 8, 2015
In this interview, the dramatist, researcher, and theatre director Femi Osofisan, a fellow at the center since 2012, explains how colonialism shaped his conception of ‘theatre’ during his childhood and how he became aware of the political, ethical, and moral dimensions of performance and theatre while studying in France in the 1970s. Osofisan also shares his rich experience as a political dramatist and theatre director who has been working around the globe for more than 30 years, practicing ‘interweaving’ as an aesthetic strategy for addressing current social and political problems in Nigeria and many other places where he has staged his fascinating work—including the U.S., the U.K., China, and Germany.