Dynamics of Distancing in Nigerian Drama

With respect to the extent to which a work of art such as a play can achieve distancing and manipulate the level of an individual’s cathartic experience, the perception of a state of balanced distance relies on the audience’s ability to continually readjust its gaze according to the levels of its perception of dramatic illusion. This is best demonstrated in the analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horsemen in which the audience has to constantly adjust to the making and breaking of dramatic illusion because of the duality of action and behaviour displayed by Elesin’s actions towards his community. Since an audience is required to separate itself from the immediacy of the performance, the separation from the on-stage actions is, according to Reiss,

theatrical only when the play does, in fact, manipulate them. The intellectual reaction […] is always—or nearly so—removed from the stage action, while the affective is bound to this action, so that by appealing at will to each separately or to both at once, the stage activity will reduce or increase the distance. As the action on stage may be more or less realistic, for example, so the audience may be more or less aware of its being before an illusion. In short, the distance may fluctuate. (1971, 6)

What is important, however, for a playwright or an artist, is to exercise caution in selecting the themes, because some allusions or strategies which bring aesthetic pleasure can considerably decrease the distance or degree of illusion. This implies that basically distance is subject-orientated as its average levels fluctuate from one person to another or from one type of audience to another; for instance, the level of distance a Nigerian audience experiences in watching a Nigerian play would be different from that of a western audience. Logically, it can be assumed that while each generation of Nigerian audiences will experience different levels of distancing (what Bullough terms as ‘ability’ or ‘habitual’[4] measures of distancing; 1912, 94), because of the effects of changing political, social, and cultural realities, an artist or playwright will also achieve different reception levels of distancing from his or her audience.

In the Nigerian context, distancing can be viewed at different levels in dramatic performances. It can either be thematic, structural or linguistic, influencing its observers simultaneously on spiritual, psychological, political and social levels. However, these various levels rely commonly on traditional performance forms and techniques and cultural resources, used by dramatists according to their individual inclination. From the precolonial, oral-based Alarinjo theatre and Hubert Ogunde’s folk-operas[5] to westernized performances of Biyi Bandele-Thomas and Esiaba Irobi’s radical experiments, cultural traditions have remained a vital determinant in cataloguing the diversity of Nigerian outlook on life within a single theatrical space. This study reveals that the exploration of the illusive or fictive nature of drama by Nigerian dramatists is an outcome of their culturally ritualistic past, with an emphasis on theatricality and total performance combining elements of music, singing, dancing, comedy, satire and parody. It will be discussed later, especially through Wole Soyinka’s King Baabu, how sensually rich, comic, and parodied performances can affect the levels of distancing between on-stage actions and the audience. In order to create a balance between these levels, Nigerian playwrights resort to both indigenous and western illusion-breaking techniques which appeal to the aesthetic/emotional and cognitive/rational constituents of their audiences’ psyche. They need little artificiality to draw audiences’ attention to the artifice of theatre through half-curtains, conspicuous stage lighting or placard displays as in Brechtian theatre; they have indigenous material at their disposal to adapt and play with.

An important study of the levels of distancing was carried out in 1999 by Joanna Kot with regard to Russian plays. She connected the variable levels of dramatic distancing with the reception and response features in each play and their potential for achieving distances that estrange the audience. Adopting a notion similar to Bullough’s awareness of changing levels of distance, Kot’s study not only demonstrates the increase (distanced state) and decrease (emotive state) in distance in a dramatic performance, but also highlights the occasions when a certain balance is achieved between the two extremes. Her analysis of the plays reveals the “straightforward and direct connection between the ‘size’ of the distancing and a canonical genre, as sanctioned by tradition and recipient expectations”, and the way it is disrupted. Fluctuation in distance, what Kot describes as “shifting distance”, continuously “draw[s] in and push[es] away the recipient”, thus challenging his or her genre expectations (Kot 1999, 1–2). Since the aesthetic experience is approached by a recipient through fixed cultural and social mental scripts, any intrusive or surprising treatment in terms of genre or dramatic material distances him or her from the performance. This experience will, as a consequence, disrupt and dislocate audiences’ habits or ways of seeing things, thus allowing them to reframe their schematic frames from section to section and between rising and falling dramatic actions. With reference to Nigerian drama, the comparison in the modulating levels of distancing to varying cultural or artistic conventions, norms, and expectations will be made in the analysis of the different plays to follow. While it might be difficult to locate and subsequently isolate the points of reference through which distance can be measured in each audience, the variables will change not only in each generation but also from one dramatist to another. Although the conditions that create these variables will be noted in this study, it is beyond its current scope to measure the impact of distancing in specific audience groups.

In his discussion and analysis of “modernist” or “realist” texts, David Hayman makes a relevant comparison between the techniques of distancing and the mechanism of a camera shutter. He asserts that such texts, like the operation of a camera shutter which creates a variation in the lens aperture, modify and impose distance in different degrees. His example from James Joyce’s novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916),[6] reveals the significance of the “moments when character and reader lower their guards, [and] expose themselves to intense emotion”. According to Hayman, at this level of maximum involvement, “something intervenes to dampen and distance, to modify at some level the given position” (1978, 34). The readers and audiences of the selected Nigerian plays may also feel the same variation in distancing in terms of their shifting emotional positionality within a specific performance formula. This experience can be both palliative and disruptive. Kot attributes the difficulty in reading modern plays to this “constantly shifting distance, [which] undercut[s] the recipient’s expectations and make[s] him feel lost, uncertain and sometimes irritated” (1999, 9). However, she strongly asserts that this difficulty can be overcome and through a careful balance between distancing and emotiveness successful audience response can be achieved. This idea is further developed below in the discussion of Brecht and Thomas J. Scheff, both of whom propose cognitive and emotive directions in playwriting and production through their distancing models.

It has been mentioned previously that distancing is not specific to any particular genre of art or literature. It applies to the audience and performers of drama, mass entertainment, novels, poetry, or any literary genre which deals with writer/reader, performer/spectator, or director/actor binaries and even to those hybrid constructions that work independent of determined generic rules. Similarly, many devices for creating distancing are used interchangeably and unreservedly by writers of all literary, performance and artistic genres. These devices work both ways; they can either under-distance or over-distance the recipients depending on the context, demand, and impact of a literary work or performance in a given situation. The formulaic and structural presence of distancing techniques can be seen in various traditional and non-traditional literary tropes.

As a distancing tool in stagecraft, Brecht created A-effect or distancing in his theatre through means such as opera, music, and chorus, and stage conventions like fully exposed lighting, placards, stage signs, minimal set pieces, and at times through white half curtains. In fact, he further developed Erwin Piscator’s epic theatre conventions, which had involved mechanized sets, scaffold stage, and cinematic projections, to suggest that audiences were watching fiction or artifice rather than reality.[7] Whereas Piscator merged the realms of stage and audience through revolutionary architectural means, Brecht preferred to foreground this division by making use of various distancing devices and strategies pertaining to the style of acting and the urgency of the themes, and by manipulating the general reception tendencies of his audiences. Also, by subverting Wagnerian operatic traditions, Brecht incorporated ballads and songs as independent structural devices of the plot in order to distance the audience from the characters. Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk aimed at “casting a spell over [the spectators], and stifling any disturbing element that might lead to reflection” (Carlson 1993, 384); while Brecht sought to raise the audiences’ critical abilities by jolting them out of complete immersion in the performance.

The list of traditional artistic distancing features includes irony, paradox, juxtapositions, symbolic representations, comic interludes, masking and chorus, among many others. In addition, distortion and foregrounding of linguistic elements, as well as the use of parody and caricature, are also regarded as distancing elements. Nigerian playwrights make extensive use of these devices in order to break and fluctuate reception levels of dramatic illusion of their audiences. David Hayman points out a significant momentary identification of the “implied reader” in modernist texts (novels) and suggests that an extra measure of distance is imposed by such techniques as humor, irony, symbolism, and allegory. However, he regards irony as one of the most potent tools through which distance can be achieved because of its quality of “generating a double vision of the moment of the text” (Hayman 1978, 33)—a phenomenon which is termed “discrepant awareness” by Evans in his discussion of Shakespeare’s plays (Evans quoted in Scheff 2001, 162). Irony, and other devices that Hayman talks about, draw attention to the discrepant nature of any text or performance in various forms, creating a conflict in perception that does not allow for coordination between different levels of performance reception by audiences and performers. Femi Osofisan’s performance-within-the-play technique in The Chattering and the Song is a good example of such disjunction. This discrepancy forces the recipients to distinguish between what is shown and what is actually proposed. Since metatheatrical devices famous for their illusion-breaking function are imbued with this quality, they can also be categorized as distancing devices.

Some of the non-traditional distancing devices that Joanna Kot enumerates in her discussion of Russian modernist plays deal with the deconstruction of traditional dramatic formulae. This can involve discarding the conventional exposition and denouement, juxtaposing the comic and serious, enhancing the fictitiousness of the play through absurdist elements or by “creating a deictic orientation toward an offstage there, rather than the more usual eternal present” (Kot 1999, 12). The last of these techniques comes within the parameters of intertextuality or interhistoricity—also a frequently-used technique in the context of Nigerian drama. Reminiscent of Julia Kristeva’s postmodern “mosaic of quotations” or “permutation of texts” paradigm, intertextuality allows inter-subjective adaptation and transformation of texts by encouraging double reading of the poetic language. Following Bakhtin’s idea of the novel as a site of contesting voices, Kristeva acknowledges the interdependent nature of all texts characterized by “a plural productivity in which multiple voices—textual, socio-historical and ideological—coexist and communicate” (Lara-Rallo 2009, 92). Intertextuality emerges, then, as one of the most productive metadramatic strategies for the objective or distanced reading and subsequent treatment of history and cultural pre-texts. The past text/s perform/s on the present textual site both as an absent presence and present absence, thus encouraging a double reading of the whole performance process.

Elements of surprise, exceptionality, and suspense can also be used as distancing strategies with regard to a literary piece of work, performance or any devised performance situation. While explicating the significance of distancing in tragedy, Bullough declares that “what creates distance is the inclusion of exceptional situations, exceptional characters, exceptional destinies and conduct” (1912, 103). “Exceptionality” might also be true of the classical drama that supports the Aristotelian aesthetics of theatre; however, when swathed in devices such as comedy, farce, and allegoric representation, exceptionality can have a very well defined purpose in modern drama in general and Nigerian drama in particular. In this respect, a writer/playwright or director attempts to reveal commonalities of real life in an atypical manner so that the recipient can first distance him- or herself from the events unfolding on the stage and then assess the gap between both structures (the original and the distorted). The atypicality of any performance provides a theoretical base from which to assess the kinds of outcome likely to be achieved in a theatrical situation. It relies heavily on the notion of distancing either as a means to disrupt, invert or subvert the illusion of reality or to offer a dual or fresh perspective of events, characters and formal techniques in order to bring about dramatic disruption.

To a great extent, distancing devices depend on belief systems and the degree of an audience’s allegiance to a particular idea or notion. For example, although not directly related to the field of drama, Thomas J. Scheff’s study of the role of distancing in emotions[8] with respect to certain beliefs and practices inherent in rituals emphasizes how these practices help in “regulating the emotional distance among their participants” (2001, 135). According to the Scheffian model, the main dimensions of distancing that make it a variable phenomenon consist of binary oppositions such as present versus past time, fiction or fantasy versus reality, rapid review versus detailed recollection and positive versus negative emotions (106). In these contrastive categories, the first element of each set helps to distance an audience from the emotional make-up of a performance, while the second element diminishes the distance and maximizes emotional identification. Although conceived and practised in psychotherapeutic contexts, these categories play a significant role in dramatic situations and by extension in the analysis of dramatic texts. Moreover, as Scheff further notes, the elements such as physical distance from the event, musical cueing, use of masks, flashbacks, comic interludes, and reported and stylized speech also affect the levels of distancing (136–140). The success of distancing techniques depends on how and to what extent they are incorporated into and developed within a play.

Although the presence of the choices mentioned by Scheff with regard to the balancing of distance are seen and subsequently analyzed in the selected plays, it is beyond the scope and purpose of this study to trace all types of distancing technique and to assess their role within each generic category. Therefore, I shall focus particularly on distancing that is manifested at inter- and intra-textual and structural levels, creating possibilities of affecting an audience’s reception of a performance.

1.1 Bertolt Brecht and Distancing

An influential playwright and theatre practitioner of the twentieth century, Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) developed the concept of epic theatre which aimed at social and political change in pre-World War II Germany. Heavily based on Marxist principles and co-conceived with the Piscatorian aesthetics that represented theatre as a political laboratory, his theatre created a new inventory for playwrights, directors, and actors in terms of technique, style and stagecraft.[9] It is important here to note that Brecht was not the first to conceive the notion and model of alienation for his theatre. Many prominent political, social and literary influences helped him develop his dramatic formula. The post-World War I cultural milieu demanded a greater challenge to authority by questioning undemocratic social structures, and in this context Brecht was motivated to study Karl Marx’s (1818–1883) Das Capital. His engagement with the Communist Manifesto led him to set up his learning-plays, Lehrstücke, along the lines of the Piscatorian aesthetics of political theatre which had a purely utilitarian purpose. However, Brechtian theatre soon reverted from this agit-prop stance to the propagation of a dialectical vision which resulted in Brecht’s later masterpieces such as Galileo (1938) and Mother Courage (1939).

Brecht also shared many of his theatrical postulates with Frank Wedekind (1864–1918), an esteemed German playwright and artist. Like Brecht, Wedekind showed contempt for bourgeois society and achieved his estranging effects through short, loosely connected scenes, melodrama, and slapstick humour. Brecht’s early works, such as Baal (published 1918, produced 1923), also show signs of Georg Buchner’s (1813–1837) dramatic techniques, especially with regard to Aristotelian theatre known for its gradual plot development, and epic theatre in which each scene as an individual unit stands on its own. With regard to non-conformist principles, Expressionism[10] also seems to have influenced Brecht in developing his principles of estrangement. Yet, being subjectively inclined, the movement placed emphasis on the distortion of reality to create intense emotional effects on its recipients; Brecht, by contrast, envisaged alienation or detachment in non-empathetic terms—an estranging characteristic aiming to curb emotional involvement.

According to Walter Benjamin, Brecht presented a non-Aristotelian dramaturgy because he realized that “the conventional, Aristotelian theatre with its empathy, catharsis and non-participation was disturbing the critical faculty of the audience” (1969, 28–29; Banerjee 1977, 176). However, as Ruby Cohn rightly argues, Brecht’s “opposition of Epic Theatre to Aristotelian Theatre was a matter of emphasis rather than an absolute polarity” (1969, 44). In fact, Brecht did not reject ‘the existing’, nor did he try to create a completely new theatrical topos, but sought to put “old things together in new ways” with the aim of “[addressing] himself to the conventions and traditions by which society views the world” (Hornby 1986, 24). While subverting the idea of empathy and catharsis, Brecht achieved this emphasis by trying to promote theatrical distancing not only in terms of audience-performance relationship but also in relation to an actor’s emotional distance from the character he is supposed to perform. The actors, according to his distancing paradigm, while remaining detached from their characters invite criticism of them by performing social gests.[11] This notion is as much applicable to an actor as to any member of an audience, aiming to “[teach him/her] a certain quite practical attitude” and raising his or her capacity “of thinking and of reasoning, of making judgements even in the theatre” (Brecht 1974, 72, 78–79). In this respect, the theatre becomes not only a place where political and social issues are reported but also a learning experience in which emotions are channelled through and moderated by critical thinking.

Brecht’s theory of estrangement is crucial to his notion of epic theatre, which seeks to turn both the audience and spectators of a particular performance into third-person observers. However, this does not entail a complete breach between the stage event and its audience; rather, as Kot indicates, Brecht aims for “intellectual identification” (1999, 8), which instead of playing with the “audience’s hearts”, should portray the figures on the stage as “coldly, classically and objectively” as possible (Brecht 1974, 15). Thus Brechtian epic theatre aims to appeal less to the feelings than to the audience’s intellect, for only in that way can a balanced distanced position be achieved. Expressing his concerns about the production of his plays Baal and Dickicht, Brecht claimed that he “kept [his] distance and ensured that the realization of [his] (poetical and philosophical) effects remains within bounds [while] the ‘splendid isolation’ [of the spectators] is left intact” (9). Since the Brechtian formula of epic theatre also hinges on pleasure,[12] this isolation does not fail to appreciate the importance of aesthetics which refer to the sensory-emotional values inherent in a piece of performance. The acceptability of pleasure, however, depends on the cognitive capacity of any work of art (Suvin 1967, 56–57). For the same reason, later in his dramatic career, Brecht preferred the term ‘dialectical’ to ‘epic’ as manifesting the true spirit of his theatre.

What is sometimes overlooked is that Brecht’s theatrical art was not just a cold and objective rendering of events and a distanced political laboratory, but “a catalyst to social action and cultural making, a making that extends beyond the auditorium as the audience leave” (Franks and Jones n.d., 12). Thus, the medium of theatre should be taken as a three-edged tool serving to educate, provide aesthetic pleasure, and generate political argument and action (3). In support of this view, Brecht termed his Threepenny Opera a report on life in which any member of the audience not only sees what he or she wishes to but also what questions these wishes. This is what he calls “complex seeing”; that is, “to think above the stream than to think in the stream” (Brecht 1974, 43–44). This process is more of a discovery of one’s cognitive potential, rather than a reliance solely on one’s emotional reservoir. Since “emotional involvement in the political message” (Kot 1999, 8) cannot be denied, an audience should, simultaneously, be enabled to “assemble, experiment and abstract” from the changing circumstances on the stage (Brecht 1974, 60). In this respect, John J. White observes that after the 1930s, Brecht’s epic theatre sought to acknowledge the role of both feelings and the cognitive capacity of the audience (2004, 2006–9). The current study of contemporary Nigerian drama also focuses on the potential capacity of the plays to engage audiences both critically and emotionally. In his famous retort “Much Ado About Brecht”, Ola Rotimi counteracts widespread assumptions that force together politically motivated rational capacities of Nigerian audiences with Brechtian principles promoting intellectual detachment. While explicating the importance of both emotions and intellect in African traditional performances, in which the roots of modern Nigerian drama are found, Ola Rotimi finds Brecht’s epic theatre to be deficient in its appeal to emotions (Rotimi 1990, 255). Although the degrees of emotional evocativeness may vary in both types of theatre (Brechtian and African), an overview of Brecht’s dramaturgy shows that it is an error to consider epic theatre as completely failing to produce an emotional environment. This discussion is, however, irrelevant in the context of this study.

It is important to mention that in Nigerian drama the relevance of Brechtian drama is limited to its conceptual framework. Any connection between the Brechtian theory of estrangement and the role of distancing in Nigerian theatre is in fact coincidental—just as it is erroneous to assume that Brecht’s theory of distancing derived directly from other dramatic traditions such as Russian and Chinese Peking Opera. Besides, Brechtian aesthetics also changed from his early to later plays—his principles gained maturity and became less rigid in terms of his take on the role of emotions, while his oeuvre moved from traditional to more experimental dramatic structures, such as the transformation we see between Baal (written 1918, produced 1923) and Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (written 1940, produced 1948). The ideological stress on socio-political theories which he introduced into his plays according to the demands of the context, also wavered with time. Conscious of the “faulty and time-bound character” of these theories, (as are Nigerian playwrights) “he opened them for discussion” by approaching them “undogmatically” (Mueller 1994, 90).