Radical Theatre in Contemporary Nigeria: A Review of the Contributions of Saint Gbilekaa

Abstract

The practice of radical theatre in the world generally has taken different dimensions in other to achieve different results by different scholars. In Nigeria and most countries of the world, radical theatre is gradually been metamorphosed into community theatre or theatre for development. This paper is a review of the contributions of one of the leading scholars on radical theatre in contemporary Nigeria-Saint Gbilekaa. Fundamentally, the paper reviews Saint Gbilekaa’s book, Radical Theatre in Nigeria where so many issues on theory and criticism in the study of drama and theatre are raised. The paper concludes that, given the nature of our society, if the theatre is to be used as a weapon of collective struggle and human mobilization and liberation, it must encourage the people to protest and resist all oppressive structures in the society. If this is done, our leaders will be on their toes in delivering the desired quality of leadership needed by the people.