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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The dilemma of the popular playwright: the work of Kabwe Kasoma and V.E. Musinga |
Author: | Etherton, Michael |
Year: | 1976 |
Periodical: | African Literature Today |
Issue: | 8 |
Pages: | 26-41 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Subsaharan Africa |
Subjects: | theatre drama |
Abstract: | It appears that cultural expression of a changing society, and theatrical representatations in particular, are primarily literary, and that the published play, following perhaps an indifferent performance, or in some cases no performance at all, is both more influential and prestigious than the play which is successfully performed for a mass audience and is never published (which perhaps it cannot be because of its multi-language, multi-media, partially improvised form). In this light the author introduced the work of two African playwrights who are popular dramatists in their own countries but whose plays are not readily available to a wider readership: the Zambian playwright Kabwe Kasoma and the Camerounian playwright Victor Eleame Musinga. Both playwrights appear to derive their inspiration mainly from the urban African experience of the common man, as opposed to the urban elite. Yet independent African societies do not appear to recognise the qualities of originality, traditional culture, and non westernised creativity present in the township culture. Bibliogr., Notes. |