The Aesthetics used in Directing Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman

Abstract

Wole Soyinka is one of the very notable dramatists that have emerged from the continent of Africa. Yet, the most  common criticism against his plays is that they are too difficult to understand. This criticism arises probably from the  reader’s inability to understand the unique manner in which Soyinka deploys aesthetic codes in his plays. As a result,  many critics and theatre directors have remained on the fringe of Soyinka’s dramatic constituency, thereby denying  readers and audience the opportunity to experience the value and beauty of the plays of one of the most gifted  dramatists in world literature. In this article, therefore, we interrogated the aesthetic codes deployed by Wole Soyinka in  Death and the King’s Horseman which were used by the theatre director, Thomas Onyonyor, in directing the play. Using  analytic and participant observation methods, we have argued and shown that the aesthetics of storytelling drama,  ritual theatre, the masquerade tradition, dance-drama, the Oriki (praise chant) and the Yoruba mythology made the  aesthetic edifice of the production robust. In doing this, we have attempted a survey of the concept of aesthetics in  order to contextualize the discourse. The conclusion reached is that it is by exploring these aesthetic codes that a   theatre director can successfully realize the play in performance.