Dynamics of Distancing in Nigerian Drama

While this study makes a partial and selective use of Brecht’s theory of estrangement, Brechtian ideas are transposed here as a constituent feature of a metatheatrical framework allowing one to read contemporary Nigerian drama and its sociopolitical contexts. Traditional distancing techniques such as framing, masking and costume drama, which have their roots in pre-independence performance practices and West African ritual drama, play a significant but different role in Nigerian drama, as opposed to European drama. They do not produce distancing by compromising the emotional involvement and subsequent catharsis. Here it is important to mention that since Brecht himself knew that “the spectator […] is the one element the dramatist cannot control, in any form” (Williams 1973, 318), in the analysis of selected Nigerian drama his ideas are applied exclusively to the action and dramatic design of the plays. In addition, this reappropriated and recontextualized Brechtian model is supplemented by Thomas J. Scheff’s theory of balanced distancing in emotions. To observe and codify the effects of catharsis and the way it is revealed through the actual emotive state of an audience is beyond the scope of this study; therefore, the analysis of the plays relies on the possible impact of an effective distanced space, which is characterized by both cognition and aesthetic pleasure. However, since emotional states of mind are famously known to lead to some kind of mental release and equilibrium, the possibility of catharsis in audiences of Nigerian drama remains at the forefront.

1.2 Thomas J. Scheff and Optimum Distancing

In order to cover the emotional aspects of Nigerian drama, the notion of balanced distance introduced by American social psychologist, Thomas J. Scheff, is very relevant. Scheff (2001) believes that aesthetic distance can be achieved through the creation of a space where the audience can socially relate to the happenings on the stage while maintaining an aesthetic absorption and critical outlook. He further argues that this state can only be achieved by optimizing the under- and over-distanced situations. Scheff considers distancing of emotion as vital to the process of catharsis. He defines it “as the ratio of observation of, to participation in, one's emotions” (1981, n.p). According to his model, neither under-distanced nor over-distanced situations allow an audience to reflect on their experience of drama in a balanced manner, as the former can result in intolerable fear and the latter may fail to generate any emotions at all. In between these two extremes lies his concept of aesthetic distancing, through which, while remaining aloof as observers, an audience can participate in the emotional environment of the stage, experiencing repressed feelings and discharging them as well. Whereas Freud and Breur (1895) call this process abreaction, because it brings about a therapeutic change in any individual or a group of people, in dramatic terms it is famously known as catharsis. At an aesthetic distance, “the individual achieves a balanced relationship to the past; that is he both remembers and relives past experiences”, in other words, s/he acquires the roles of both a “cognitive observer” and an “affective actor”, the confluence of which engenders a “psychic tension”, released through catharsis of emotions followed by “a gentle moment of recognition” (Landy 1994, 112–14). Consequently, optimum and aesthetic distance in the theatre involving emotions such as fear, anger, grief and shame, which are commonly disturbing can possibly enhance the interest of the audience as well as provide pleasure (Scheff 2007, 107).

Scheff links his concept of distancing to role-taking—that is, the degree of an audience’s emotional reaction to and understanding of the play. In Osofisan’s The Chattering and the Song, this role-taking may offer a kind of constant challenge to an audience because of the multiplicity of performative illusions created through the play-within-the-play technique. In his discussion of Shakespeare’s comedies and romances, Bertrand Evans argues for the significance of “awareness control” in which audience awareness is moved “back and forth between the awareness of characters in the drama and their own point of view” (Evans quoted in Scheff 2007, 108). In this context, the levels of distance coexist with and are in direct proportion to the alterable states of individual consciousness. Scheff associates this kind of alternation with the feeling of control from which one can “pendulate” out if it gets intense (109). In other words, distance reconciles the differences between “idealistic” and “realistic” situations (Bullough 1912, 107), thus creating a liminal space where two extremes are married.

Scheff makes a clear distinction between three types of drama: the first aims to touch the intellectual dimensions of the human mind, what he calls the “drama of ideas” such as we find in Shaw; the second demands “an intense emotional reaction” from the audience as we find in Seneca’s plays, and the third offers a balance between thoughts and feelings and is “orientated towards catharsis” (2001, 152–53). According to Scheff, most of the classical dramas of Sophocles and Shakespeare and modern plays by Ibsen and Wilde exemplify this third type. In order to fill the lacuna created by the absence of studies on emotions in the social sciences, Scheff took a step towards integrating the socio-cultural and psychological aspects of emotions and their potential catharsis and their subsequent effects on real life, the neurological and theatrical contexts. Drawing from Aristotelian terminology, Scheff ascribes the meaning of ‘terror’ to fear and ‘pity’ to ‘empathic identification’ with one or more of the characters in drama which leads to catharsis. He believes that in both drama and psychotherapy an audience re-experiences an emotional crisis “in a context of complete security” (Scheff 2007, 100), which in the case of drama is theatre. He rationalizes his argument by associating a cathartic experience with Wordsworthian emotions which are “recollected in tranquillity” and offer endless possibilities to the poet. In the context of the audiences of Nigerian drama, this kind of cathartic experience parallels aesthetic distancing which is characterized by “emotional expression that is clarifying and relieving, rather than obscuring and overwhelming, and that invites an engagement of the rational, reflective capacities” (Landy 2001, 58).

B. Metatheatre and Dramatic Distancing

1.3 Metatheatre: Conceptual Significance with regard to Distancing

The convention of foregrounding the illusive, fictive or theatrical nature of any dramatic enactment on stage is widely termed ‘metatheatricality’. The term is made up of two semantic units; the prefix ‘meta’ and its qualifying term ‘theatricality’. Here it is important to understand the dynamics of the prefix ‘meta’ and the way its etymological meaning has changed over the years. Although originally ‘meta’ was a Greek prefix which means ‘after’, ‘among’ or ‘with’, its evolutionary process in the English language has made it mean the same as one of its corresponding homonyms, ‘metaphysics’, which is commonly defined as ‘beyond physical’. However, epistemologically ‘meta’ as a prefix is used to mean ‘about’, signifying the knowledge of a phenomenon with regards to its own category or nature. Regardless of the transformation that has occurred in the semantic make-up of the prefix in question, its present position before ‘theatricality’ suggests both the knowledge of the dramatic presence of the dramaturgical content and its fictive quality. In other words, in a particular metatheatrical situation, a playwright not only creates a generic distance from his or her piece of work by making it the subject of his artistic creation but the fictive creation also produces a state of psychic distance in the audience. Since all forms of art emphasize the “art-character of Art” (Bullough 1912, 99), even if naturalistic or realistic, the distancing components of any theatrical production also forestall its “anti-realistic” nature.[13] Darko Suvin, while making a distinction between the mirroring and dynamic visions of art, argues that for Brecht art is “Dynamo”,[14] “an artistic and scenic vision which penetrates Nature's possibilities, which finds out the ‘co-variant’ laws of its processes, and makes it possible for critical understanding to intervene into them” (1967, 56–67). By connoting the meaning of ‘meta’ with distance or dynamic illusion its significance in any performance situation in general and contemporary Nigerian drama in particular can be underlined.

Metadrama[15] or metatheatre is widely regarded as drama about drama or theatre about theatre, producing self-conscious moments by which a play draws attention to its fictionality. In the context of theatre, self-consciousness implies those dislocating moments whereby audiences are made to comprehend the artifice of theatrical reality created on the stage. In other words, it suggests the conscious awareness of the distance that a play/drama constructs through its artistic medium. Dramatic elements and techniques such as direct address to the audience, prologues, asides, epilogues, chorus, textual and real-life referentiality, play-within-the play or play about a play, intertextual allusions and linguistic signifiers are all generally considered as metatheatrical or metadramatic techniques; hence, they are also devices to create distance. They not only refer to the illusive and theatrical nature of a performance but also reflect upon the art of playwriting itself and help in the dissolution of generic and theatrical boundaries.

In the context of Nigerian drama, an optimum balanced distance is created through metatheatrical techniques, whereby the audience is made both to appreciate the aesthetic value of the performance by realizing its artifice as well as reflect on different issues—the latter being an important aim of Brechtian theatre. However, significantly the “manner” and “degree” to which these metatheatrical techniques are employed can vary from one