Antigone in Yoruba Land Some Remarks on the Conception of Tegonni, an African Antigone

Abstract

In the Fall of 1994, I was invited to present an adaptation of Antigone at the Theatre Emory of Emory University, Atlanta. The context of performance—which I always allow to play a decisive role in the shaping of my dramaturgy—provided a number of interesting challenges. Theatre Emory was situated in the suburbs of a town which had been central to the resolution of the American civil war; which was the homing ground of
Martin Luther King, and therefore heavily implicated in the civil rights movements; and finally, a town which was, at that moment, busy with the preparations for the coming Olympic Games scheduled for 1996. The campus itself, given its location, was conspicuously white in terms of its majority population, rich, and expanding; in marked contrast to the black colleges downtown. The cast I had to work with were therefore of mixed racial origins, but predominantly middle-class: its ignorance of the true realities of Africa had to be taken for granted. But at the same time, I was arriving from a virtually on the verge of civil war society, following the annulment of democratic elections by a ruling militocracy, and the consequent violent uprising of the civilian populace, torn among various
ethnic and political groupings. I had meant Antigone to be my own protest against military dictatorship, an act of fidelity towards the people I left behind, just like Anouilh’s version had been at the time of the German occupation of France. But my Tegonni proved to be more than that. This paper explains what kind of play it turned out to be, and the various pressures that gave the play its final shape.