The Director as a Theatre Critic: The Case of Dapo Adelugba

Abstract

Criticism is a vital material for the director to interpret the play text on stage. This is his primary duty in the theatre. It makes the director remain the only one among other critics who has initial and right away contact with the script, stage, improvisation, performers, and performance. This contact does not require a go-between. Once the director chooses a play text as the raw materials, he does his play reading, audition, casts and rehearses with the players. After all these processes the production takes place. However, the dramatic and scholar-critic work directly with the play script. They end there with the publication in a journal article, while the journalist-critic in the media relies on the production put up by the director to write his reviews in the newspapers and magazines.  It is only the director who functions completely as an all-rounder-practitioner and in addition criticizes what he practices. This study examines the director as a critic in the arts of the theatre with a special focus on Dapo Adelugba. Through a study of Adelugba’s views, the views and reviews of others about his views in the arts of theatre in Nigeria we shall examine Adelugba's critical visions and works.