Theatre Designs for Counter-Terrorism: Performances of Ojo Bakare’s Drums of War as Paradigm

Abstract

The fight against terrorism has been unabated because as military forces kill members of terrorists groups, the terrorists are recruiting new members. So, there is a need to imbue in every society's psyche, a strong revulsion to be conscripted for terrorism. This study, therefore, uses Drums of War performances which were staged at different times of groups and communal hostilities with a glaring atmosphere of imminent bloodbaths in Nigeria, as paradigms with which to investigate the potential of theatre designs (in rousing the stark horrors of war/violence) as a psychological strategy for engineering in a people, a mindset that eschews violence or terror against fellow mankind. This study adopts a qualitative research methodology (which includes: participatory observation, focus group discussions with members of the audience community and interviews with the playwright and play director) for primary data gathering; while secondary data are gathered from journals and other library materials. This study anchors its argument on the Hypodermic Needle Theory and submits that: if every society (especially ones that are easy targets for terrorist recruitment) is strategically and effectively saturated with dramas that arouse an anti-terrorist vibe, the people (who are potential recruits for terrorist’s acts) would be indoctrinated against becoming willing conscripts into terrorism; hence, a dwindling in the manpower for the continuous proliferation of terrorism.