Realistic Drama

Introduction

Realism is a belief that things and events exist; that is, they have being independently of the knowing subject. Most people are realist in their attitude to the material world, knowing quite well that a moving bus will run them down if they step in front of it. However, there is much more to the universe than its material substances and artifacts; many of the things we know and think exist (e.g., truth, love, organizations, societies) are not known to us directly from sense experience. For this and other reasons, it would be naive to assume that everything is as we see it or otherwise believe it to be (Bakari and Cham, pp. 67-78). Hence it is important to distinguish between naive (and/or commonsense) realism, which assumes the world is as it is perceived, and reasoned or critical realism. The latter postulates that an external world exists but also recognizes that, in many areas, obtaining valid and reliable knowledge about it will not be straightforward. For the principled or critical realist, the development of knowledge is about undertaking research to replace received ideas. This paper discusses the portrayal of realism in different dramas especially in post-colonial literature in a concise and comprehensive way using the sources mentioned in the works cited page.

Realistic Drama: A Discussion

We closely see that post-colonial literature and drama portray the themes of realism. In the following lines we discuss the same.

In attempting to address postcolonial political issues in their work, many authors come into conflict with their governments. The clash between the individual artist and state authority can be seen in the lives of Wole Soyinka in Nigeria; the Gikuyu (now exiled) Ngugi wa Thiong'o from Kenya; and Amadu Maddy in Sierra Leone. The imprisonment, exile, and, at times, execution of artists demonstrate that aesthetic expressions carry with them great risks. Wole Soyinka, "the great protester," who has been recognized as the most prominent African playwright, is an example. His plays have been produced in Nigeria (Bakari and Cham, pp. 67-78), London, and in the United States on Broadway. Soyinka and his contemporaries—most notably, Dexter Lyndersay and Ola Rotimi—have successfully worked to establish a viable Nigerian theater. But Soyinka's "protest drama," revealing the contradictions of modernism, has brought the ire and wrath of the Nigerian government upon him. Using satire and parody, his plays reveal how power corrupts absolutely and, thus, is the basis of chaotic society. Both his Madmen and Specialists and The Man Died, written in the context of the chaotic Nigerian civil war, and the abuse he received while imprisoned, clearly demonstrate the difficulty of artists using drama to clarify the many issues within postcolonial state formation.

On another level, these artists, as do most others, address the contradictions of using European dramatic forms by developing theatrical plays that have a peculiarly indigenous orientation, sensibility, language, theme, context, spirit, and values. In Nigeria, for example, university drama students, using the indigenous Hausa language and working with village actors, dramatized the annual Kalankuwa festival, which ...