Drumbeats for Darkness: UNIZiK revamps modern theatre

As part of concerted efforts aimed at revamping the theatre going culture of Nigerians, one of the best plays chronicling some of the topical issues in the country, Drumbeats for Darkness written UK-based Nigerian author, Efemena Agadama is again on the spotlight.

 The play is scheduled for performance at the School Auditorium, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Anambra State on July 26, 2016.

In the performance, Agadama’s Drumbeat for Darkness’s casts beautifully and theatrically demonstrate creative mastery and artistic intelligence in unleashing the pinnacle of voice-tension and resetting modern drama in their course production.

Starring in the UNIZIK production are Anyian Gabriella as Oreva, Emeruwa Valentino as Prince Uke, Alor Cynthia as Omosioni, Okafor Lucky Emmanuel as Odeme a chief priest, Uchendu Chijioke Joseph as Aso a Chief Priest.

To watch the casts, students of Theatre and Film Studies of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, undertake these rehearsals of Drumbeats for Darkness and give a masterful impression that the future of theatre and film is taking a new root in this federal university shortened as UNIZIK.

Critics and reviewers regard UNIZIK as one of Africa’s most renowned performing arts institutions due to its quality of performances that explore the furthest parts of theatre theories, paradigms and inventive practices.

In this fresh performance of Drumbeats for Darkness directed by Ebekue Onyeka, whose specialization is in Film Studies and Directing, the directing technique mirrors the elements of ancient Greek theatre where the works of the greatest tragedians in world literature – Sophocles, Aristotle and Euripides – established earlier elements of dramatic tragedies. Those great Greek tragedians kept their audiences and cities awed-bound through outdoor theatre, language and plot tightening. It is such dramatic techniques to hold audiences spell-bound that Onyeka has revamped in the rehearsals of Drumbeats for Darkness at UNIZIK.

And to reset modern tragedy and heightened language, Ebekue Onyeka has equally introduced previously unknown techniques in African oral literature, which distinguishes him as a creative director, who is not limited by academic theories. This dramatic inter flow of African oral literature and ancient Greek theatre authoritatively demonstrates that modern drama is yet to be explored to its unfrequented dramatic sphere.

In furtherance of his artistry, Onyeka is successfully working with the Theatre & Film students to create a beautiful production that uses the Isoko language and settings to dramatise the chants, drumming, acapella and choruses. Till date, one of the most beautiful productions of Efemena Agadama’s Drumbeats for Darkness has been the production at the Department of Dramatic Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University in 2010, directed by Momodu Evans. That production in OAU saw a heightened choreography of the war scene with uniformed warrior costumes built with raffia palms.

African Leaders Have Failed Africa

For so long majority of African leaders have put the blame of the continent's woes at the doorstep of the white colonial masters.  They blame everthing on the slave trade abolished so many years ago.  They blame things on the partitioning of Africa.   What relationship does the slave trade, and the partitioning of Africa, got to do with the poverty, militants, rebels, electoral malpractice, oil spillage, tribalism, armed robbery, career rape and embezzlement of funds in Africa today?

The Slave Trade Act, an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, was passed on 25 March, 1807.  That Act abolished it in the British empire.  Although, it continued in other places, it finally ended towards 1833-1865 after the seizure of over 1,600 slave ships and the setting at liberty of over 150,000 Africans onboard those ships.  In fact, I feel tired when we blame the Whites for all our woes.  I have heard from elders how fellow African kings enjoyed the slave trade.  They voluntarily captured their own tribesmen and neighbouring tribesmen and then sold them out to the Whites.

Let's ask ourselves these simple questions, On how many occasions did the Whites even go into African jungles and towns and forcefully take Africans into slavery?  And if they did, which was more, compared to the number of occasions that Africans forcefully seized their own people, their own brothers, their lovely daughters, and then carefully took them to the coast in chains and sold them out joyfully.

 How long do we allow them to feed us with lies?  For how long? Brothers, sisters, the unborn and the dead, for how long shall these lies go unchecked?

The problem of Africa revolves around the failure of the African leadership.  A sydrome that they will never accept rather they prefer brainwashing everyone that cares to listen.  Today, Ethiopia is crying for an immediate food aid to save millions from immediate starvation and collosal death.  Will they still say that the slave trade that ended so many years ago, in fact, hundred of years ago,  is still the cause of the poverty and famine there?  If one considers the huge amount of aid, grants and humanitarian provision from Europe and America one would see reason why past and present African leaders are to be blamed for putting the continent in a sad mess.

Almost the entire continent is in shambles, begging for survival.  And these leaders keep sending billions of their hard country's earnings to foreign banks for personal and selfish interest.  99% of all former Nigerian presidents and governors are all billionaires.  Is there any former African president that is not wealthier than his own community?  Let Africa look into itself, cleanse itself and stop blaming the whites for its woes.  Students are running to Europe and America for study when Africa has hundreds of varsities.  What do we have now?  Africans facing hatred, pains, stressful strugglings, regrets and starvation in foreign lands whereas the elders of their own homes, where they ought to enjoy liberty, are daily destroying their resources and squandering them for selfish reasons. These elders have only created rooms for destructive militancy and bloody rebellion in guise of revolution

Please, it's enough, let's leave the whites alone and rewrite a fresh African history or perhaps we might need their leaders to teach African leaders responsive leadership.   African Leaders, you have failed Africa; redeem its image and glory.  Let's memorize this David Diop's poem, especially the first four and last four lines and see how African leaders have failed the continent whose greatness was prophesied long ago but now swims in a poverty-striken rivers of tears.

English version

Africa my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings
On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous child that tree, young and strong
That tree over there
Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers
That is your Africa springing up anew
Springing up patiently, obstinately
Whose fruit bit by bit acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.